I LIBRARY UNIVE IT> OF CALIr jftNIA / SAN DIEGO * r BY THE SAME AUTHOR. PRICK. WITNESSES FROM THE DUST: Or, The Bible Illustrated from the Monuments. 12010,. . $i 60 LIVING RELIGIONS: Or, The Great Religions of the Orient from Ancient Books and Mod- ern Customs 121710 15 BEAUTY CROWNED, Or, The Story of Esther, the Jewish Maiden. i2mo, So OLD HEROES. The Hittites of the Bible. Paper 50 Cloth, 75 FIRE FROM STRANGE ALTARS. , 2 mo, . 90 DEPARTED GODS. THE GODS OF OUR FATHERS. BY REV. J. N' r FRADENBURGH, Ph. D., D. D., ^K THE NORTH DAKOTA UNIVERSITY. CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWR. NEW YORK: HUNT & RATON. 1891. Copyright By CRANSTON & STOWE, 1801. (Eo my AND G^NEST Recognition of their Purest Filial Devotion, Stainless Characters, AND Ripening Scholarship, I'oltuuc. THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. present work is a concluding volume of A a series in which are treated in a popular way, and yet with a fair degree of thoroughness, the great religions of the world, both living and ex- tinct. "Living Religions" possesses peculiar interest in that it discusses the faiths of the present heathen world in fields now mapped out and occupied for Christian missionary conquest. "Fire from Strange Altars" is not less im- portant in that it attempts to place in systematic array many of the ascertained facts concerning the archaic literatures and old cults of Israel's neighbors, from the earliest period which history has reached to that when these mighty empires, which shook the world while it was yet but young, dropped in pieces with the advent of more advanced political and religious ideas, more efficient engines~of war, and wiser military organizations and plans for defense or conquest. The present volume, it is believed, will command an equally generous welcome, both because of its connection with the classic nations, and much 4 PREPACK more because it treats of the religions of our own fathers before the light of Christianity shot its mild and beneficent rays into the world's first gloom. The student of the Greek and Latin classics has had his attention too frequently confined to dry details concerning the genealogies of the gods or the myths which relate their adventures and exploits presenting the moral character of the divinities in a light in which little, to say the least, can be found for unqualified commen- dation ; while the Germanic and Celtic nations have failed to receive any adequate hearing. While the author in this work does not neglect mythology, he endeavors to awaken a more lively interest in the religions of the peoples with whom he has to do. Such a work can not but give new interest to the studies of the classic student, while the general reader will be in- structed and edified in its perusal. The Chris- tian scholar also will not fail to appreciate its value. It will increase his reverence for his fathers, who walked by this uncertain but only light, while he will more and more rejoice that all other religious lights of the world have been eclipsed by the true and glorious light of the Sun of Righteousness. JULY, 1891. CONTENTS. i. THE RELIGION OF GREECE. PAGE. 1. GREAT ZEUS 11 II. GODS AND HALF-<;ODS 28 III. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS, PRIESTS AND ORACLES 77 II. THE RELIGION OF THE ETRUSCANS. THE RELIGION OF THE ETRUSCANS 115 III. THE RELIGION OF THE ROMANS. I. THE GREAT GODS 143 II. PRIESTS AND FESTIVAL 163 III. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM 183 IV. THE RELIGION OF THE DRUIDS. 1. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS AND THE CULTURE HERO 215 II THE SUN-GOD 257 III. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS 290 IV. LITTLE PEOPLE 325 5 6 CONTENTS. V. THE RELIGION OF THE NORSE. PAGE I. THE MISTS OF THE WORLD'S MORNING 339 II. THE WARRIOR AND THE THUNDERER 364 III. GODS AND NO-GODS 391 IV. THE DOOM OF THE UNIVERSE . 422 LIST op ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE.. STATUE OF ZEUS OLYMPICS 21 MOTXT OLYMPUS, 26 BRONZE STATUE OF APOLLO, .... 35 STATUE OF PALLAS ATHENE, . . . . 41 PALLAS ATHENE, 43 ABDUCTION OF CASSANDRA FROM THE TEMPLE OF PALLAS, 45 THE PARTHENON, 47 ARES, . - 54 ARTEMIS OF THE EPHESIANS, ... 58 TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS, AT EPHESUS, ... 59 FESTIVAL IN HONOR OF DEMETER, ... 63 HERACLES SLAYING THK LERN^CAN HYDRA, . 90 THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR, .... 93 FOOT-RACE, OLYMPIAN FESTIVAL, ... 94 THE HOMERIC ZEUS, 98 THE CHOICE OF HERACLES, . . . . 107 THE PANTHEON, OR TEMPLE OF ALL THE GODS, . 148 .) TITTER, 150 TEMPLE OF VESTA, l.>; RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF SATURN AT ROME, . 157 JANUS, 165 8 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE STATUE OF A VESTAL VIRGIN, . . . . 171 ROMAN PRIEST AND PRIESTESS, . . . .175 STONEHENGE (RESTORED), .... 235 DRUIDICAL STONES, CARNAC, BRITTANY, . . 247 FAIRIES, . 326 ODIN WELCOMES A HERO TO VALHAL, . . . 365 FREY, OR FRIGG, 370 SCANDINAVIAN RUNES, 374 THOR, 377 THOR'S DWELLING IN ASGARD, .... 379 TYR, SON OF ODIN AND FRIGG, .... 398 HEATHEN TEMPLE NEAR STRASBURG, GERMANY, . 403 I. Keligtmt of I. GREAT ZEUS. r I MIE Pelasgians worshiped the Supreme God, JL nameless, and without temple or image* on high mountain-tops, the natural altars erected and consecrated by the power and presence of God. Zeus may have meant at one time merely the heavens, the luminiferous abode of the in- visible God. In the midst of the idolatrous and polytheistic worship of later times, the God not made with hands or apprehended by the phys- ical senses, still dwelt on the tops of the sacred mountains, in the brightness of his glory, form- less and unapproachable. There was a pious dread of naming or representing the Divine Being; hence there were altars to the Unknown, the Great, the Pure, and the Merciful. This early Pelasgian god demanded the sacrifice of human victims, and the Greek religion was not emancipated from these bloody rites till after the lapse of many centuries. Greek literature bears traces of a pre-classical stage in theology. The three gods who"- shared among themselves the dominion of the world the earth, the sea, and the realm of the shades may have been originally the same god. 11 12 DEPARTED GODS. Persephone, the wife of Hades, according to an Orphic myth, was united with Father Zeus in the form of a snake. In the Pontic cult there is little or no distinction between the Chthonian Zeus and the supreme Zeus. Plato also makes Pluto, the god of wealth, closely resemble Zeus abounding in riches. The god is still more closely connected with the sea. He gives the fair winds, so welcome to mariners, and his tem- ples are frequently built on headlands overlook- ing the sea. He also protects the landings of voyagers. Poseidon occasionally bears the des- ignation of Zeus Enalios, or "Zeus of the Sea." The Pelasgic Zeus was differentiated, and there resulted three brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Some of his sons may also have been devel- oped out of his character. He bore epithets by which he was distinguished as the god of war the strong one, the helper in the conflict, and the giver of triumph. The Zeus of the Carians was represented equipped with a battle-ax, and clad in the complete armor of a soldier. Ares, the god of war, was a later development. This Zeus became the chief of the Olympic gods, the father of gods, and the god of gods. Paul quotes from a Greek poet, " We are his offspring." (Acts xvii, 28.) This clause is from GREAT ZEUS. 13 a hymn of Cleanthes, a Stoic philosopher, who was born at Assos in the Troad, about B. C. 264. This may well be characterized as one of the purest conceptions of God to be found in all heathendom. It does not descend to the low pantheism which, more than anything else, disfig- ures the Stoic system. We present a translation of the hymn : "0 thou, who, under several names, art adored, but whose power is entire and infinite! Zeus, first of immortals, sovereign of nature, governor of all, and supreme legislator of all things, accept my suppliant prayer ; for to man is given the right to invoke thee ! Whatever lives and moves on this earth drew its being from thee; we are a faint similitude of thy divinity. "I will address, then, my prayers to thee, and never will I cease to praise thy wondrous power. That universe, suspended over our heads, and which seems to roll around the earth, obeys thee; it moves along, and silently sub- mits to thy mandate. The thunder, minister of thy laws, rests under thy invincible hands ; flaming, gifted with an immortal life, it strikes, and all nature is terrified. Thou directest the universal spirit which animates all things, and lives in all beings. 14 DEPARTED GODS. "Such, almighty king, is thy unbounded sway ! In heaven, on earth, or in the floods below, there is nought performed or produced without thee, except the evil which springs from the heart of the wicked. By thee, con- fusion is changed into order ; by thee, the war- ring elements are united. By a happy agree- ment, thou so blendest good with evil as to produce a general and eternal harmony of the world. Wretched being, who seeks after good, and yet perceives not the universal law which points out the way to render him at once good and happy. He abandons the pursuit of virtue and justice, and roves where each passion moves him. Sordid wealth, fame, and sensual pleas- ures become, by turns, the objects of his pursuit. " God, from whom all gifts descend, who sit- test in thick darkness, thunder-ruling Lord, dispel this ignorance from the mind of man; deign to enlighten his soul ; draw it to that eternal rea- son which serves as thy guide and support in the government of the world ; so that, honored with a portion of this light, we may, in our turn, be able to honor thee. by celebrating thy great works unceasingly in a hymn ! This is the proper duty of man. For, surely, nothing can be more delightful to the inhabitants of the GREAT ZEUS. 15 earth or the skies, thaa to celebrate that divine reason which presides over nature."' Aratus, another Greek poet, sings in similar strains, assigning to Zeus that providential care which watches over all the creatures of God, and calling upon all men to worship him who is their great and faithful friend. There is also an Orphic hymn of great beauty, in which Zeus is praised in loftiest terms. It is said to have been quoted by Plato, and, if so, must be ancient. The pantheistic flavor of the hymn may mar, but can not conceal, its real beauty .f When we are studying the lives of the phi- losophers, we are all the while conscious that we are learning but little concerning the religion of the common people. We may, however, well believe that some of the simple pious among the people, so far as the subject came within the range of their intellectual and spiritual vision, recognized God in his true character, by what- ever name he might be called, and extended to him proper reverence and worship. The comic writers and satirists must be read, yet with dis- crimination. Glimpses of the worship of the lower classes are afforded in incidental and some- *Cory, Ancient Fragments, pp. 192, 193. tRule, Oriental Records, Monumental, pp. 209-211. 16 DEPARTED GODS. times undesigned utterances and allusions, which elsewhere have been denied. Indeed, no portion of classical literature should be neglected, if we would understand our subject. We must not be startled if we find that quite frequently magic, and other superstitions, had more influence to captivate and sway the common mind than all the great gods and goddesses. The poets and tragic writers have furnished us with many noble expressions concerning God. "No one is free but Zeus," says ^Eschylus. And again : " He fills the world, and is above it." He is called by Terpander "the beginning of all things, and the conductor of all." Pindar says that "God governeth all things according to his will ;" and again : " Zeus obtained some- thing more than what the gods possessed." Xenophanes gives utterance to the noble thought : "There is but one God, greatest among men and gods, and not like mortals in form or mind." Hesiod speaks of "the eye of Zeus, which sees all and knows all." In Homer, Zeus is called " the father, the most glorious, the greatest, who rules over all mortals and immortals." Soph- ocles has a pure ideal, when he says : " Courage, courage, my child ! There is still in heaven the great Zeus, who watches over all things and rules. Commit thy exceeding bitter grief to him, GREAT ZEUS. 17 and be not too angry against thy enemies, nor forget them." There is an approximation to the Golden Rule in Isocrates : " Do not to others what you would not suffer from them, and be towards others what you would wish I should be towards you." Hesychius makes an ancient hero, Bonzy- ges, say more clearly : " Do to others what you would should be done to you." There is no one good but God all men are sinners. God looks favorably on the pious, and cherishes them in life and after death. He delighteth more in a pure heart than in all sacrifices. Says Menander: " Finish your sacrifice to God with faith, being just and adorned with purity of soul as with a brilliant garment. If you hear the thunder, do not fly, since your conscience makes you no re- proach; for God seeth you, and holdeth himself near you." "Good thoughts are the greatest gift of God," says ^Eschylus. " Worship is due the gods," says Aristotle, "because they are the source of the greatest benefits we have re- ceived, and we owe them intelligence as well as life." We present from the tragic writers a few more sentences : "Look thou on him who looks on all from heaven, Guardian of suffering men, 18 DEPARTED GODS. Who, worn with toil, unto their neighbors come As suppliants, and receive not justice due. Zeus, the true suppliant's god, Abides, by wail of sufferer, unappeased." "For not a subject hastening at the beck Of strength above his own, Reigns he subordinate to mightier powers ; Nor does he pay this homage from below, While one sits throned in majesty above. Act is for him as speech, To hasten what his teeming mind resolves." "Zeus, who leadeth man in wisdom's way, And fixeth fast the law, Wisdom by pain to gain." "O Zeus, whate'er he be, If that name please him well, By that on him I call ! Weighing all other names, I fail to guess Aught else but Zeus, if I would cast aside Clearly in every deed, From off my soul, this weight of care."* Socrates taught that " there is a Being whose eye pierces throughout all nature, and whose ear is open to every sound ; extending through all time, extending to all places ; and whose bounty and care can know no other bounds than those fixed by his own creation." f *Miiller, Science of Language, Second Series, pp. 460, 461; Brace, The Unknown God, pp. 90-101. tXenophou, Memorabilia i, 4. ORE AT ZEUS. 19 Zeus is the lord of the upper regions, dwell- ing especially on the summits of the most lofty mountains, where he gathers arbout him the dark storm-clouds, shakes the world with his thunder, ami hurls the fiery bolts in his wrath. The Olym- pian deities form with Zeus a family, over which he presides in patriarchal dignity. They are unable to stay the tide of his power, to thwart his will, or to ruffle the deep serenity of his soul. His tremendous nod confirms decrees which no power can frustrate. He has established the eternal order of events, and himself submits (he Fates of his own appointment. The destinies of nations and of men are in his hands. He sets kings upon their thrones, and he sanctions human laws. He watches over social rights, secures the fulfillment of contracts, and holds all men to the observance of their oaths. He. sees the guilty and the unjust, and attends to the punishment of all wickedness. He is mild and merciful, but has no respect for the treacherous, the arrogant, and the cruel. He is interested in the delibera- tions of assemblies. He is the god of hospital- ity, and regards the stranger and the poor. He presides over property, and watches over fences and landmarks. All suppliants are under his peculiar protection, and all dwellings are in his keeping. He sends wealth or poverty, health or 20 DEPARTED GODS. sickness, hunger or plenty. He is the father of music and song. He is all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wise, all-sufficing, all-causing, and all-accom- plishing. He is the god of armies, and maintains liberty among men. There is another side to the character of Zeus which must have been due to mythology and the poets. He is subject to passion and frailty ; he feels pleasure and pain; he is refreshed with am- brosial food; he inhales the savor of sacrifices. Zeus met with many adventures in his loves. He was often moved by anger, jealousy, and hatred. There were factions in his court, and conspiracies against his government. He some- times quarrels, is not always steadfast in pur- pose, is controlled by desire, and harbors resent- ment. He storms at other gods, and resorts to unseemly violence. The popular god was doubtless this Zeus, with all his very serious imperfections. He is subject to all the infirmities of the flesh. He is not eternal ; his life had a beginning, and, ac- cording to the belief of some, will have an end. Sometimes he seems to possess little power, and other gods can beard him with a measure of suc- cess. He is not faultless in his moral character in any of the relations of life. He dethroned his father, proved unfaithful to his wife on re- STATUE OF ZEUS OLYMPICS (By I'licid, 22 DEPARTED GODS. peated occasions, and abused his own children. Together with many noble traits of character were combined great weakness and monstrous wickedness. The science of mythology explains, to be sure, the origin of many of these inconsis- tencies ; but these explanations do not change the character of the Zeus in whom the general popular heart believed. Zeus did not become the chief of the gods without a struggle. According to the oldest writers on the origin of things, Uranos and Goea, or Heaven and Earth, gave birth to the Titans, of whom Cronos was the youngest. Of the same parentage were also the Cyclopes ; and also Cottos, Briareos, and Gyes, each of whom had fifty heads and a hundred arms. Uranos was displeased when he saw his monstrous offspring, and thrust them back again into the bosom of Gsea. The mother, vexed at this outrage on the part of her royal husband, called upon her sons to avenge her wrongs. Not one dared to raise his arm against his father, except Cronos. Arm- ing himself with a sickle, or curved sword, Cro- nos waylaid and wounded his father, and from the drops of blood which fell from the wounds sprang the Furies and the Giants. Cronos now reigned with his wife Rhea, who was also his sister. ORE AT ZEUS. 23 The Cyclopes became dangerous because of their enormous strength. Cronos feared that if left to themselves they might some day hurl him from his throne. He determined, while he was able, to guard against a calamity which might soon be without remedy. He imprisoned the Cyclopes beneath the earth, where, in volcanic regions especially at Mount Etna, and on the Lipara Islands and Lemnos they assist Hephaes- tos at his forge. Their names Bronte, Sterope, and Arges speak of the flashes of the flame and the mutterings of the voices of volcanic erup- tions. Now, Uranos and Gsea had informed Cronos of another danger. They foretold to him that he was destined to be dethroned by one of his own children. To guard against this new danger, he swallowed all of his children sis soon as they were born Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. When Zeus was born, Rhea gave her lord a stone, wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he swallowed instead of his infant son. Now, Rhea sent Zeus away to Crete, where he was brought up and educated. There are different and contradictory tradi- tions concerning these early matters. Zeus was placed under the tuition of Nymphs, and even their names have been preserved. They are 24 DEPARTED GODS. characteristically three in number : Thisoa, Neda, and Hagno. On a mountain called Thaumasium there was, in the time of Pausanius, a cave called Rhea's Cave, which only women sacred to the goddess may enter. Here it was that she cheated Cronos, giving a stone to swallow in the stead of a child. Tradition points to Mount Lycseus as the place of his birth.* Zeus gave his father an emetic, by means of which he was made to disgorge the children whom he had swallowed. The stone which he had swallowed was pre- served at Delphi, anointed every day, and at fes- tivals crowned with wool. Pausanius says that stone-worship was the oldest worship among the Greeks. Almost every temple had its sacred stone. The Argives had a rude stone called Zeus Cappotas. The oldest idol of the Thespians was a stone. Another stone was preserved be- neath the pedestal of Apollo at Delos. In the Achaean Pharse were thirty squared stones, each bearing the name of a god. There are but few traces of the worship of Cronos. He had a temple at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens, and sacrifices were offered to him annually on Olympus. * Pausanius, Description of Greece, viii, 36. GREAT ZEUS. 25 Zeus, with his brothers, rebelled against his father, and, after ten years, was victorious, and thrust him into Tartarus, where he was guarded by the hundred-banders. Another account says that he went to the Island of the Blest, where he ruled over the departed, and, in connection with Rhadamanthus, judged the shades. Plu- tarch places him on an island in the northern seas, where he is guarded by the hundred-handed Briareus. Whatever may have been his destiny, he received, as we have seen, but small consid- eration from the religions of the Greeks. Zeus, in this great war against his father, had let loose the Cyclopes, and they furnished him with thunder-bolts. Some of the philosophers have little respect for Hesiod and Homer, who have preserved for us so many stories of the crimes of the gods. When Pythagoras descended to the shades, "he saw the soul of Hesiod bound to a brazen pillar, and gnashing its teeth, and that of Homer sus- pended from a tree, and snakes around it as a punishment for the things that they had said of the gods."* Legends concerning conflicts with primitive giants, sometimes monsters in form, and always of superhuman strength, are abundant in the * Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Philosophers, p. 347. 26 DEPARTED GODS. early myths of most of the nations of the earth. Possibly there may, in certain cases, be a refer- ence to primordial races; but doubtless the mean- ing of these legends is largely exhausted when we connect them with the ever-recurring strug- MOUNT OLYMPUS. gle between the bright and the dark powers of nature and the later geologic preparation of the world for its present inhabitants. Speaking of the war of the gods against the Titans, Lenormant says : " The localization and the epic form with which Hesiod has clothed this narrative were influenced by the tradition of a GREAT ZEUS. 27 great convulsion of the terrestrial crust, occa- sioned by the breaking forth of subterranean fires, the scene of action being the Grecian coun- tries, and the witnesses the men already inhabit- ing them, doubtless that convulsion known to geologists as the upheaval of Tenarus, the last of the Plutonian crises which overwhelmed the ancient world, the effect of which was felt from the center of France to the coasts of Syria. . . . The men who witnessed this frightful convulsion of nature naturally imagined themselves to be in the midst of a battle of the Titans, issued forth from the Chthonian Sea against the celestial pow- ers, combined with the Hecatonchirs, other ter- restrial forces in conflict with the Titans, and their imagination depicted these tremendous ad- versaries, the ones stationed on the summit of Othrys, the others on the summit of Olympus, reciprocally endeavoring to crush each other by hurling burning rocks." * *Lenormaut, Beginnings of History, pp. 361, 362. II. GODS AND HALF-GODS. POSEIDON is placed by Gladstone among the five greater gods of Greece, The four re- maining gods are Zeus, Hera, Apollo, and Athene. " These five deities are all of them strongly marked in individual character, widely different each from all the rest, and yet each effectually subordinated to the fundamental conditions of the system, in which the poet has assigned to them commanding positions. They are also par- ticularly associated in this important respect, that each of them is based upon a single leading idea. It is not very easy to find* in every case, an English word which shall satisfactorily ex- press this idea. For the present I would state the case as follows : The leading idea of Zeus is polity, taking this word as the rendering of the Greek PolitiJce. The leading idea of Poseidon is physical, not mental force ; of Here, nation- ality ; of Athene, mental force ; and of Apollo, obedience, or conformity to the will of Zeus."* The god which is the subject of Gladstone's * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, March, 1887, p. 460. 28 OODS AND HALF-GODS. 29 study is the Homeric Poseidon. His original character can not be satisfactorily determined. A native and perhaps elemental god may have furnished the basis of this character, but the superstructure contains many foreign elements. He is the sea-god, and possessor of the trident; but he is also the god of the horse, the god of earthquakes, the god of the building art, the god of special families and races, and " the god who stands personally related to rebellious pow- ers." Some of these functions he possesses in common with other divinities. He is the second of the three brothers of Cronos, among whom the dominion of the world was distributed by lot. While Zeus has the wide heaven and Aido- neus has the gloomy underworld, to Poseidon falls the gray sea. The earth is common to them all. The three brothers originally stood on an exact equality. Poseidon claims for him- self the same rank with Zeus, and never admits even an advantage in point of age ; but, on the other hand, he never resists. Zeus calls him " the oldest and the best of gods." Poseidon speaks as an equal when he says of Zeus : " Let him not bully me, as if I were a coward ; but let him keep his big words for his own sons and daughters, who have no choice but to obey him." 30 DEPARTED GODS. This gray god of the sea is surpassed by Zeus alone in his relations with women and nymphs, and. in his many lines of descendants. Briareus, the hundred-handed, known among mortals as Aigaion, is his son ; and Thoosa, daughter of Phorcus, bore him Polyphemus. He is the father of Nausithoos and the royal line of Scherie by Periboia. Turo bears to him Pelias and Neleus, and from Iphimedeia he has Otos and Ephialtes.* His paternal feeling seldom rises higher than brute instinct. His strength is not of intellect, but of hand ; not of heart, but of gross physical frame. He seldom does anything suggestive of real divinity. Nereus was the old elemental god of the sea, but since the arrival of Poseidon he has been banished to the deep sea. His greater succes- sor is confined to the surface of the waters. He dwells in a palace, and the axle of his chariot is not wetted. In his own province his powers are conditional and limited, while other deities, unchallenged, invade his realm. But the god has important relations to the land. He is the god of earthquakes. The mountains and the forests tremble under his feet. On one occasion he shook the earth so violently that the god of the underworld leaped * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, March, 1887, p. 463. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 31 from his throne, fearing lest the rocky crust should break and disclose to the eyes of the gods above his own dismal realm. Poseidon was doubtless a foreign god, or the result of the fusion of the elements of a native and a foreign cult. He may have been introduced from Caria or Libya. Gladstone favors an origin from the south and the east, because of his rela- tion to the horse, his epithet of earthshaker, and one of his titles drawn from the color of his hair, which was black, with a slight trace, hint, sus- picion, or soupcon of blue. He seems to have been the special god of the Eastern ^Ethiopians. As the god of foreigners who reached Greece from across the sea, he became very naturally the god of the sea. In many parts of the Odysseus, Poseidon seems to have escaped the yoke of the Olym- pian system, and breathes a freer atmosphere and exercises more ample powers and prerog- atives. The worship of Poseidon was not confined to maritime States, but prevailed the most exten- sively near the coast. Human sacrifices were offered, horses were buried alive, and his com- panions were "wild Titans and spiteful demons." The Hellenes never entirely abandoned his wor- ship, and he always maintained his position and 32 DEPARTED GODS. character as god of the sea. " Even where he was worshiped in the interior, men believed they heard the salt-waves resounding under his temple."* His temple at Mycale was the center of the federal institutions which originated in Miletus and Ephesus, and which united twelve cities. His most famous festival was that celebrated every second year on the Isthmus of Corinth. The pine was sacred to him, and a row of these trees stood near his temple on the isthmus. A wreath of pine-leaves was the prize of victory at the Isthmian games. He is represented in works of art holding a trident, and with a dolphin on his hand or under his feet. Sometimes he rides a bull, a horse, or a sea-horse, or rides in a chariot, and is often surrounded by the Nereids and other fabulous inhabitants of the sea. The character of Apollo is one of the most attractive of the whole Olympian court, and has been studied with almost affectionate reverence. His worship was probably foreign, and may have been introduced from Lycia or Crete ; but it soon became an important part of the Hel- lenic system. Apollo was now made the son and interpreter of Zeus. * Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. I, p. 65. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 33 "Apollo rises on the vision of one familiar with Greek antiquity as almost a pure concep- tion, almost an angelic divinity. To a form of ideal beauty, combining youthful grace and vigor with the fullest perfection of manly strength, he added unerring wisdom, complete insight into futurity, an unstained life, the magic power of song, ability and will to save and heal, together with the dread prerogative of dealing out at his pleasure destruction and death. Compassionate on occasions as Mercy herself, he shows at times the keen and awful severity of a destroy- ing archangel. Ekobolos, l striking from afar,' he speeds his fatal shafts from his unfailing bow, and smites whomsoever he will with a death- stroke which there is no escaping. Never of- fended without cause, never moved by caprice, he works the will of Zeus in all that he- does dispenses retributive justice, and purifies with wholesome fear the souls of men. Partaker of all the counsels of his father, and permitted to use his discretion in communicating them to the denizens of earth, he delivers his oracular re- sponses from the various spots which he has chosen as his special abodes ; and, though some- times his replies may be of doubtful import, he seldom sends away a votary unsatisfied. The answers which he gives, or, at any rate, is sup- 34 DEPARTED GODS. posed to give, determine the decisions of states- men and shape the course of history. War and peace, treaties and alliances, are made and un- made as the Delphic and other oracles, inspired by him, advise; and the course of Hellenic col- onization is almost entirely determined by his decrees. Poet, prophet, physician, harper, god of victory and angel of death in one, Apollo is always on the side of right always true to Zeus, and not much inferior to him in, power." * An analogy has been traced between Apollo and the Son of God. Gladstone says: "In Apollo are represented the legendary anticipa- tions of a person to come, in whom should be combined all the great offices in which God the Son is now made known to man as the Light of our paths, the Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our misdeeds, and the Conqueror and Disarmer, but not Abolisher, of death." f The character of Apollo is shown in his active embracement of the will of Zeus. Returning to this subject, Gladstone says : " To this most curi- ous and striking feature of the Apollo, I am not aware that anything analogous has been found in what are commonly known as Aryan tradi- * Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World, pp. 188-190. t Gladstone, Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. II, p. 132. BRONZE STATUE OF APOLLO-THE COLOSSUS OK RMol>l->. (One of the Seven Wonders, i 35 36 DEPARTED GODS. tions, or in the results of Egyptian research. When we approach the Semitic province, there is a change. In the Assyrian system, as it is set forth in the volume of Professor Sayce, the character of Merodach appears to be related to that of the god Hea, his father, in a manner much corresponding with the relation between the Apollo and the Zeus of Homer. We are now brought upon ground where remarkable co- incidences have already been disclosed, although it is impossible to forecast the bearings of future Assyrian discoveries on what has been already found. But if Merodach exhibits a correspond- ence with the Homeric conception, he corre- sponds also with what may be his Semitic origi- nal; namely, the undeveloped but most significant tradition recorded in the book of Genesis re- specting a future Deliverer, who was to bruise the serpent's head, and to undo his work by restoring mankind to that very union with the highest will which had been broken by trans- gression, and of which the Homeric Apollo ex- hibits an unvarying and finished example."* This is a daring comparison, but it has reason and weight. The advent of Apollo-worship marked an epoch in the history of Greece. "It resembled * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, May, 1887, p. 751. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 37 a second day of creation in the history of their spiritual development." Great advancement was made in the social order, and improvements in all that pertained to Hellenic civilization were inaugurated on every hand. Religion became more spiritual, music and song gave expression to the pure joys of the heart, man was brought into a closer and more blessed communion with the gods, and the voice of great Zeus was heard in the inspired utterances of the prophets. The power of the Erinnyes was broken, the cry of the penitent was heard and his sin pardoned, and a reign of divine grace began. The religion of Apollo had its different phases. In the mountain and forest worship of Hylates, on Cyprus, and among the Magnetes, wild cus- toms prevailed. Apollo as Delphinius is a sea- god ; and at Delphi he is " the god of light and right, who guides the course of States, the spir- itual center of the whole Hellenic world. In this Apollo, Hellenic polytheism received its harmoni- ous completion, and the loftiest glorification of which it was capable."* There had been, before the days of Homer, a cult of the sun-god within Achrean territory. The prevailing worship of Ithaca seems to have been sun-worship, as Gladstone has made out Curtius, History of Greece. Vol. I. pp. 67. 68. 4 38 DEPARTED GODS. with great probability.* The ruling name of Phoebus was given to this nature-power, and "this sun-god grows into and forms what may be called the material and popular basis for the Ho- meric Apollo." The latter is the god of the in- fluence of the sun on nature, while, as his subor- dinate, Helios guides the orb in his daily course; just as Artemis personifies the power of the moon, while Selene guides her course. Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto, and was born on the island of Delos, which Pindar says had been a barren rock, floating about in the sea, but was at that time made stationary by being fastened down by pillars. The same also happened to Rhodes, the center of the worship of Helios. The child-god immediately seized a bow, and announced his purpose to found an oracle. His father gave him a lyre, a miter wherewith to bind his hair, and a car drawn by swans. He set out for Delphi ; but the swans carried him off to their home among the Hyper- boreans, whence he returned not till the succeed- ing summer. The solar character of these myths is unquestionable. Apollo gave oracles at other places besides Delphi, and communicated the prophetic gift to certain mortals. He was the leader of the Muses, and was jealous of his gift. * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, May, 1887. GODS AND HALF- <;<>]'*. 30 He caused Marsyas ta be flayed alive, because he boasted his skill in playing the flute; and caused the ears of Midas to grow long, because he sided with Pan, who held the flute to be a better instrument than the lyre. It is not, how- ever, our purpose to pursue the myths which have gathered around Apollo. A round of festivals kept always in view the god in his relations to nature. Perhaps the most remarkable was the Carneia, which, in the month of August, engaged the attention of the whole population of Sparta, who withdrew from the town for several days, and lived in tents, as if to avoid the intense heat of the season. In July they held a nine-days' festival, called the llyacinthia, which celebrates the transitoriness of life, but also faith in its return. The May festival of Thargelia celebrated the ripening of the fruits; and the August festival of Meta- geitnia recognized him as the god of plenty, and promoted good fellowship among neighbors. These two festivals belonged to Athens. At Delphi two festivals were especially conspic- uous at the beginning of winter and at the be- ginning of spring, when Apollo was supposed to visit the Hyperborean regions and return to his sacred seat. At Thebes every eighth year the Daphnephoria was celebrated in honor of Isme- 40 DEPARTED GODS. nios Apollo, when a branch of olive was carried in procession, hung with three hundred and sixty-five wreaths, and representations of the sun, moon, planets, and stars. The worship of Apollo was introduced in Rome in B. C. 320, when the city was visited by a pestilence. The principal symbols of the god were the bow, the lyre, the tripod, the laurel, the palm, the wolf, the deer, and the raven. Art, in its ripest period, sought to combine in him the strength of manhood and the perfection of eter- nal youth. His long hair is usually tied in a knot above his forehead. When represented as the leader of the Muses, his tresses fall about his shoulders, and his long drapery is girt at the waist. Athene, as a nature-goddess, may have been originally a personification of the bright upper regions of the sky. As Pallas, she was connected with storms. Athene, in the Olympian Assembly, sat on the left side of Zeus, Hera sitting on his right side. She was the goddess of war, and was armed with spear and helmet, and the dread cegis of her father. While Apollo sometimes took the cegis in hand at the command of Zeus, she assumed it spontaneously. She was resist- STATUE OK PALLAS ATHENE. 42 DEPARTED GODS. less among heroes, and was, as we shall see, more than a match for Ares himself. She also fostered the arts of peace, and invented spinning and weaving, the art of taming horses, the flute, and the healing art. She was the goddess of polity, and of personal discipline and superin- tendence. Zeus, according to ancient story, swallowed his wife Metis, "intelligence," and Athene sprang from his head full-grown. She has been called "a conscious impersonation of the divine wis- dom." By many she has been considered an almost faultless ideal female character. Homer ranks her with Zeus and Apollo. She combined purity, wisdom, and strength; and her influence was healthful and ennobling. She was worshiped with sacrifices, prayers, and festivals. "It is difficult, if not impossible, to describe in a single word the base, or leading idea, of the Homeric Athene. The shortest account, per- haps, that can be given of her, so as to convey a living idea, is that she is the Olympian reflec- tion of Odysseus. Like him, she is polutropos many-sided, and full of resource. Like his, her purpose is of iron, her methods are of the mate- rial, be it hard or soft ; best adapted to the pur- pose, whatever it may be. Like him, she can not be small, she must be large ; but she may be GODS AND HALF-OODS. 43 either true or untrue as the occasion requires. Like, though even beyond him, she is full of forethought, has no waste of power, is always in mr.isure, never in excess. In fact, these types of character are so wedded to one another that we may go a long way with the absolute parallel before we reach those points, as it were upon the fringe of each, where the lines diverge where the human would pass from consummate art into exaggeration, if it were absolutely assim- ilated to the divine. " In him, as a man, limitation is necessary ; in her, it is less trace- able, as to her relations to the earth and man, than in any other deity. Though he never fails, yet he may put up with a drawn battle, as in the Games. Her success, from a practical point of view, is always assured. The culminating threat of Zeus to the assembled gods (II. viii, 18-27) is forth- with softened down for her (39, 40). Odysseus is, in more than one case, carried away by pas- PALT.AS ATHENE. 44 DEPARTED OODS. sion into pure error of judgment, with destruc- tive consequences. The nearest approach to error that I can find in the conduct of Pallas is in the eighth Iliad. . . . She has no grace, but much tact. She is not, except in jealousy, womanish; but she never wholly ceases to be feminine never is she rough or coarse in her dealings with men. She never enters personally, like Here, into collision with Zeus. The reproach against Here by her husband that she would like to eat Priam and his children raw (iv, 35) is one that would be utterly incongruous if ad- dressed to Athene. . . . She is perpetually thinking of the affairs and interests of those she cares for, when they are themselves unmind- ful; and she makes provision for them by unso- licited, as well as by solicited, intervention. She never enters into mere contests of the tongue never wastes a word. Athene, of the flashing eye, presents to us a marked contrast between the different internal centers of responsible ac- tion. Her intellect is a bow always strung; it is ever ready, and alive; but her emotional na- ture is as constantly under bit and bridle. The worst threats of Zeus do not stir any passion, nor even fear; they are received with a low murmur (II. iv, 20), or in silence (viii, 436). She is only bored or vexed (ietiemene) at the 46 DEPARTED GODS. obstacle placed for the moment in the way of her plans. With so much power, and such reg- ulation of it, it is in her nature to inspire the human mind with a degree of faith and confi- dence, of which we have no other equally strik- ing example."* He speaks of the Homeric goddess. Hayman brings a heavy bill of charges against the character of Athene. She never feels any tenderness or affection; she acknowledges no obligation, and she is absolutely without pity. She is busy and restless, unscrupulous in partner- ship, astute in policy, and profound in dissimula- tion. She is keenly satirical and crafty, and comprehends no motives except those which are base. She mocks the weak, and exults over them. While faithful in behalf of a comrade, she is yet heartless. She loves Odysseus for his roguery and cunning. Indeed, these are the qualities which she would doubtless most heartily commend. w Withal she would avoid no hazard to back a friend, and is always ready and prompt. These considerations can not but seriously deduct from our admiration for her character, f Zeus, Athene, and Apollo are in several re- spects placed far above all other divinities of the * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, July, 1887, pp. 81, 82. t Mahafly, Social Life in Greece, pp. 41, 42. G ODS A\l> II A L F- G ODS. 47 Greek Pantheon. Gladstone, in his masterly anal- ysis of the character of Athene, in speaking of the accordances of this goddess with Apollo, men- tions no less than thirteen important qualities or properties by which they are jointly distinguished. THE PARTHENON TEMPLE OF PALLAS ATHENE, FROM THE GROVE OF ACADEMUS. We must understand him as treating only of the Homeric divinities. Both have a special and ex- ceptional parentage. They are peculiarly asso- ciated with Zeus in worship ; and, as if they were sharers of his supreme power, both carry the segis, the symbol of supreme authority. They exercise power in the operations of nature " out- 48 DEPARTED GODS, side their particular Olympian prerogatives." Aside from Zeus, they are the only divinities dis- tinctly named as having part in that providence which directs the affairs of men. They, too, ex- hibit to men visible manifestations of their prov- idential office. Neither makes use of instruments or secondary causes to produce corporal or men- tal effects. Both administer punishment by their own authority. They spontaneously recognize and act upon the moral order of the world. In the exercise of their powers and prerogatives they overlap the provinces of other duties even in their most pronounced specialties. They are set free from the limitations of space and sense. Prayer is addressed to them in all places. There are no stages recognized in their journeys. Neither of these deities is ever stated to drink, or eat, or sleep. They are never wearied, they are never wounded, and they never suffer pain. No pas- sion ever disturbs their pure hearts. Athene re- mained the maiden goddess, and Apollo, in his Homeric character, seems never to have been moved by sexual desire. There is a passage in the " Iliad " which has been understood to signify that Apollo ravished Marpessa, but the passage yields to a different explanation. Neither of these divinities is associated with any local home, and their worship is not subject to local limitations. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 49 They exercise powers not within the course of nature or human experience. They assume at will various forms, and change the processes of nature. For illustrations of these several points the reader must be referred to the brilliant article of Gladstone, where they are worked out in much detail.* We now come to the discussion of the character of the last of the greater gods of Greece. Hera, like most of the early Grecian divinities, was doubtless at first of Pelasgian, or at least of for- eign, origin. She seems to have represented the fruitful earth, and her divine marriage with Zeus was the ever-repeated union between Heaven and Earth. The ancient Ayran idea derived all life from a divine pair, whose fertility suggested the concep- tion of them as a bull and a cow. Zeus, in the form of a bull, carried off Europa. According to Hesychius, Europa is an epithet of Hera. She is sometimes presented to us as the moon-goddess under the epithet Eileithyia. Eubrea is one of her epithets, the name of one of her nurses, the name of the island in which she was brought up, and the name of the mountain at whose foot was her most celebrated temple. But this word, as * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, July 1887, pp. 92-102. 50 DEPARTED GODS. well as her epithet Bounaia, contains the word meaning cow. She is represented at Sainos by the simple symbol of a plank, and at Thespise by a branch. In some of the paintings she is hardly to be dis- tinguished from Artemis and Aphrodite. In Tiryns and Mycenae, Henry Schliemann found cow-headed figures, which he maintained are idols of this goddess. The horns those of Isis as well; there was probably some connection be- tween Egypt and Mycenae may be the symbolic horns of the crescent representing the moon. We may consider her epithet " cow-eyed," of Homer, as an interesting survival of her early character. * In her character as a Greek goddess, she was queen of heaven, and seemed to exercise all the authority of her lord. She presided over child- birth, and her daughters, the Eileithyise, act as her ministers. The patroness of marriages, she was ever true to her own marital relations, and demanded perfect purity among her devotees. She was strong, haughty, full of intense hates and likings, and justly jealous of her husband. The poets relate her bitter persecutions of the hero- ines, who became the objects of her husband's un- holy passion. She was much worshiped, and with * Schliemann, Mycenae and Tiryns, pp. vi, vii, 10-13, 19-22, 362-364. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 51 true devotion, and had many temples, many stat- ues, and many altars to which the faithful resorted. In the Olympian court, the rank of Hera is clearly recognized. She is at once the sister and wife of Zeus ; the gods rise from their secits as she enters the council ; and she participates in certain prerogatives of her lord. Like Athene, she is permitted to wield the thunder-bolt, she never exercises any influence by personal contact with mortals, but by the direct action of the mind, and she commands the services of other deities. The nationality of her character gave her a large place in the heart of Greece. But her character sometimes descends very low. She may almost be called a scold and ter- magant. She is deceitful, full of mischievous tricks, fractious, and rough-tongued. She lies, and swears to it ; and overreaches her husband, not by intellect, but by artifice. She loses the respect of the gods, and Homer is not in love with her character. She possesses great energy of character, but lacks all those other qualities which make Athene great and majestic. Though occupying so con- spicuous a position, she suffers in comparison with Leto, whose action in Homer is so insignificant. The poet feels the utmost Teverence for Leto, and always treats her with honor, and on all occasions 52 DEPARTED GODS. carefully shields her from disparagement. Hera is treated quite otherwise. A legend is recorded that she was severely wounded in the right breast by Heracles, and yet no punishment seems to have been accorded for the offense ; indeed, no notice whatever seems to have been taken of the affair. Zeus is repeatedly roused to anger against his spouse, and launches threats at her again and again. In connection with Heracles she was sub- jected to severe corporal punishment by her lord. On one occasion she was suspended from heaven with chained hands, and anvils attached to her feet. So terrible is this punishment that the rest of the Olympian court are roused to indignation. The respect which she receives from the other great divinities is not so much because of her personal qualities of mind and heart, as because of her conspicuous position as the wife of the king of the gods.* " Her mythological presentation was certainly not of ,a nature to improve the character of those women who might take her for their model ; since, although she was possessed of certain great qual- ities passion, fervor, strong affection, self-com- mand, courage, acuteness yet she was, on the whole, wanting in the main elements of female * Gladstone, The Coritemporary Review, February 1888, pp. 181, 182. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 53 excellence gentleness, softness, tenderness, pa- tience, submission to wrong, self-renunciation, ret- icence. She was a proud, grand, haughty, pow- erful queen ; not a kind, helpful, persuasive, lov- ing woman."* Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of battles " a personification of the wild, im- petuous spirit with which battles were fought." He was splendidly armed with helmet, shield, cuirass, and spear swift of foot, great of size, unsatiable of war, furious, raging, murderous. His companions were Fury, Strife, Dread, and Alarm. He was largely, however, under the authority of Apollo and Athene, to whom he was compelled to yield. His worship is thought to have been introduced from Thrace, and the roughness of his character precluded its general adoption by the refined Hellenes. Diomedes, with the assistance of Athene, wounded Ares, and " The furious god Uttered a cry as of nine thousand men, Or of ten thousand, rushing to the fight." And when to avenge himself, he aimed his huge spear at Athene, " She only stepped Backward a space, and with her powerful hand *Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World, p. 196. 54 DEPARTED GODS. Lifted a stone that lay upon the plain, Black, huge, and jaggied, which the men of old Had placed there for a landmark. This she hurled At Mars, and struck him on the neck ; he fell With nervous limbs, and covered, as he lay, Seven acres of the field." * Hephaestus, was the god of fire, and most skillful in smelting and metallurgy. He was the ARES. artificer of the gods, forged the thunder-bolts of Zeus, and provided the gods with armor and war- like weapons. In pre-Hellenic times he may have been an elemental god. Zeus cast him out of heaven. Addressing his mother Hera, he says : "For hard it is to strive with Jupiter. Already once, when I took part with thee, He seized me by the foot and flung me o'er The battlements of heaven. All day I fell, And with the setting sun I struck the earth * Homer, The Iliad Bryant's Translation, v, 1075-1077 ' xxi, 499-506. GODS AND HALF GODS. 55 In Lemnos. Little life was left in me, What time the Sintians took me from the ground." Legends concerning dwarfed and grotesque, and yet strong and skillful workers in metals, are widely extended among many nations. Hephaes- tus made sport for the gods. " As they beheld Lame Vulcaii laboring o'er the palace-floor, An inextinguishable laughter broke From all the blessed gods."* " He spoke and rose, a wondrous bulk, from his anvil-block, limping, and his weak legs moved actively beneath him. The bellows he laid apart from the fire, and all the tools with which he la- bored he collected into a silver chest. With a sponge he wiped, all over, his face and both his hands, his strong neck and shaggy breast ; then put on his tunic, and seized his stout scepter. But he went out of the doors limping, and golden handmaids, like unto living maidens, moved briskly about the king ; and in their bosoms was prudence with understanding, and within them was voice and strength ; and they are instructed in books by the immortal gods. These were busily occupied by the king's side ; but he, hob- * Homer, The Iliad Bryant's Translation, i, 746-752; 757-760. 56 DEPARTED GODS. bling along, sat down upon a splendid throne near where Thetis was." ' Such was his appearance when consulted con- cerning the shield of Achilles : " It is characteristic of the many-sidedness of the Greeks, and consequent upon the anthro- pomorphism which makes the Olympic com- munity a reflection of earthly things, that there should be, even in this august conclave, some- thing provocative of laughter, a discord to break the monotony of the harmony, an element of grotesqueness and monstrosity." f The marriage of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, satisfied their sense of the humorous and ludicrous. The ancient Greeks paid Hephaestus no worship. Small images of this god, however, stood on every hearth at Athens, and " the Amphidromia round the hearth-fire was the rite whereby the newly-born child was adopted into the family." In the old Greek art, he is repre- sented as a bearded man. in full dress, carrying a hammer; but in his later workman's clothes he has an undignified and comic appearance. Hermes was " the god of social life and in- tercourse in general, of streets and doorways, and * Homer, The Iliad Buckley's Translation, xviii, 410-424. tRawlinson, The Keligions of the Ancient World, pp. 192, 193, OODS AND HALF-GODS. 57 of the palrestra." He is the impersonation of cleverness and commercial smartness, the god of invention, and the patron of thieves. He has been called " the Olympian man of business." He carries messages, undertakes important mis- sions, and secures worldly prosperity. He became the god of wisdom and learning, but his wisdom was strictly of a business and worldly character, and he was far from careful of the means which he employed, so that he accomplished his pur- poses. He was always "active, energetic, fruit- ful in resource, a keen bargainer, a bold story- teller, and a clever thief." His practical shrewd- ness and kindness made him the valued patron of travelers and the cherished friend of the weary. In his nature there was an element of humor and drollery, which often served him well. He invented speech, eloquence, the alphabet, weights and measures, numbers, and music. The representations show him in his early manhood. His head and ankles are winged, to symbolize his swiftness of movement. He exchanged fyis lyre with Apollo for the caduceus or rod of wealth, which served also as a herald's staff. The statue of Praxiteles, in the Heraion at Olympia, repre- sents the god leaning with his left hand on a rock, and supporting thereon the infant Bacchus. The right arm has been lost. 58 DEPARTED GODS. The mythological relations of Hermes are dif- ficult to trace, and still more difficult to explain. He is sometimes connected with the mysterious Cabiri. In the hymn to Aphrodite, Hermes and the Sileni are the companions of the mountain nymphs, and in Arcadia he is the father of Pan by Penelope. For the full treat- ment of the questions suggested by such relations larger works must be consulted. Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, possessed in a less pronounced degree the same attributes with her divine brother purity, chastity, maj- esty, skill in archery, and ministry of death. She was endowed with the same exalted type of beauty, and even took part with her brother in his favorite music and dance. In one respect she differed from Apollo she was the goddess of the chase, and haunted the mountains and forests accompanied by her hounds, rejoicing in her favorite pursuit. As Apollo was the god of the sun, she was the goddess of the moon. This may have been grafted on her original character. " The ARTEMIS OF THE EPHESIAXS. TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS, AT EPHESUS. (One of the Seven Wonders.) 60 DEPARTED GODS. spread of vegetation from the dew under a peaceful moonlight was ascribed to her influence." At her annual festival on the sixteenth of April, cakes were made in the form of the moon when in the full, and stuck over with lights. Her in- fluence was especially felt near springs, streams, on the sea, and in marshy places. Young girls were under her special protection, and dedicated to her a lock of their hair or some other trifle. She honored youth, innocence, and modesty, and was withal a beautiful character. The Asiatic Artemis was quite different. Orestes is said to have brought an image of the goddess from the Crimea to Sparta, where her worship demanded human sacrifices. These sac- rifices were commuted by Lycurgus, but this sur- vival still remained in the flogging of youths at her altar. The Carians and the Leleges worshiped Artemis in the form of an image which was be- lieved to have fallen from heaven. The wealth and splendor of her temple at Ephesus is cele- brated in history. She was the nature goddess, and an impersonation of fecundity in nature. When we study her history, we must bear in mind this double character. Aphrodite may have been originally an Asiatic deity, introduced from Phoenicia through Cyprus. She was the goddess of love and beauty ; but the GODS AND HALF-GODS. 61 love was not pure, noble, and divine, but the rather sensual ; and so, too, the beauty was phys- ic.il rather than intellectual and moral. The Greek was drawn to this goddess and fas- cinated by her charms, and yet in his heart de- spised her, and was discontented under her in- fluence. " Silly and childish, easily tricked and imposed upon, Aphrodite is mentally contempti- ble, while morally she is odious. Tyrannical over the weak, cowardly before the strong, frail her- self, and the persistent storer up of frailty in others, lazy, deceitful, treacherous, selfish, shrink- ing from the least touch of pain, she repels the moral sentiment with a force almost equal to that with which she attracts the lower animal nature." * Her usual symbols were the dove, swan, dolphin, hare, goat, and tortoise. In Paphos she was worshiped under the form of a ball or pyr- amid surrounded by burning torches. "In the best days of art every charm of beauty was ex- hausted for her statues," culminating in the Aphrodite at Cnidus, by Praxiteles. Hestia was perhaps the latest in origin of the greater gods. She presided over the altar-fire ;md all sacrifices, and claimed a portion of every offering. Her sacred fire was kept always burn- Pawlinson, The Religions of the Ancu-nt World, p. 201. 6 62 DEPARTED GODS. ing, and when by accident it was extinguished, it was rekindled by friction or from the rays of the sun. She was the goddess of the fireside, the hearth, and the home, and the art of house- building was ascribed to her. She protected suppliants who fled to her hearth for refuge, and preserved the purity, sweetness, peace, and joy of the home. Modesty and virtue were under her gracious protection. " She upheld among the Greeks the idea of virginal purity as a tran- scendental phase of life a moral perfection whereto the best and purest might not only as- pire, but attain, as the result of earnest en- deavor." Hestia presided over not only the domestic, but also the city, the tribal, and the national hearths ; and in the later mystic philosophy this became the hearth of the universe and the eter- nal fire at the center of the world. The magistrates of the city met around the common hearth-fire, and there the sacred rites that sanctify the peace of city life were per- formed. Since the hearth was the home of this goddess, she possessed few special temples. In her temple in Hermione the sacred fire was her only symbol. She may have had another temple at Olympia. Demeter, " the earth-mother," was the goddess 64 DEPARTED GODS. of fertility. She was a universal deity, though more especially honored in certain places. The culture of cereals, the work of tillage, and the making of bread the Greeks learned from this beneficent and bountiful goddess. At the Thes- mophoria, a festival at which only married women were present, she is said to have instituted the laws of life, especially of the married life of women. The Eleusinian mysteries, with their purifications, sacrifices, processions, torches, ath- letic games, fastings, solemn oaths of secrecy, and symbolic rites, wherein, in profound symbol- ism, were described the revivification of the earth after the death of winter, and the new life into which the soul is ushered after its passage through the gateway of death, were celebrated at Eleusis in her honor. The myth commem- orated in this festival is one of the most inter- esting, and celebrated in the classics, Per- sephone, her daughter, while gathering flowers in the fields of Enna, in Sicily, is caught and borne away by Hades, to become his queen in the in- fernal regions. Her mother seeks her disconso- late, the earth refuses to yield her increase, and Zeus is compelled to permit the daughter to live half the year on the earth. According to a legend, at the time when Hades was carrying off Persephone, a swineherd, GODS AND HALF-GODS. 65 Eubuleus by name, chanced to be herding his swine on the very spot, and the whole herd van- ished down the chasm which received the god ami his prize. To commemorate this event, at the celebration of the Thesmophoria, pigs, branches of pine, and cakes of symbolic import were cast into the " chasms of Demeter and Persephone." A multitude of serpents consumed the flesh of the pigs ; but at the end of the year certain women, who had undergone purification for three days, descended into the vaults, and, frightening the serpents away with the clapping of their hands, gathered up the remains and placed them on the altars. Whoever secured any of the decayed flesh, and sowed it in the field with his grain, was sure of a good crop. In the sanctuary of Demeter and the Deities of the Lower World, at Cnidus, a chamber was discovered which contained the bones of pigs and marble images of pigs.* On the fourth day of this festival was ob- served the ceremony of carrying the sacred basket in honor of the goddess. " But radiant Hesper, from the starry skies, Beholds the sacred basket as it flies : Bright Hesper only could persuade the power To quench her thirst, iu that unhappy hour, *Frazer, Thenmophoria, in Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXIII, pp. 296-297. 66 DEPARTED GODS. When, full of grief, she roam'd from place to place, Her ravish 'd daughter's latent steps to trace. How could thy tender feet, O goddess ! bear The painful journey to the western sphere ? How couldst thou tread black ^Ethiop's burning climes, Or that fair soil, in those distressful times, Where, on the tree, the golden apple beams, Nor eat, nor drink, nor bathe in cooling streams ? Hail, sacred power! Preserve this happy town In peace and safety r concord and renown : Let rich increase o'erspread the yellow plain ; Feed flocks and herds, and fill the ripening grain : Let wreaths of olive still our brows adorn, And those who plow'd the field shall reap the corn."* Pausanius describes the annual festival called Chthonia as celebrated in Hermione. The priests of the gods and all the town authorities lead the procession, and the women and the men follow. Boys, clothed in white and garlanded with flow- ers of hyacinth, also form a procession. When they reach the temple, they let inside the sacred place a heifer, and the doors are immediately shut. Four old women receive the victim, and the one who can get a chance cuts the throat with a sickle. The doors are then opened, and a second, third, and sometimes even a fourth heifer is let in, and slain in the same manner. On whichever side the first heifer falls, all fall * Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter, Tytler's translation, pp. 408, 413. GODS AND HALF-GODS. 67 on the same side. The special object of their worship no one has ever seen. It is a secret with the four old women. In Phigalia, Pausanius sacrificed to Demeter after the manner of the people of the land. The only offerings were fruit, honeycomb, and wool just as it was taken from the sheep. These they lay on an altar in front of her cave, and pour oil over them all.* Initiation into the Greek mysteries by which we now mean the greater mysteries : those of the Cabiri, the Samothracian, the Dio- nysiac, the Mithraic, the Eleusinian, and possi- bly some others was counted the highest honor. The privilege was granted at the first only to such of the priests as were prepared by educa- tion and quality, and those fortunate citizens who were to enter upon some important office of state. The benefits were of the largest moral and spiritual significance. The doctrines taught, either by word or by symbol, were the existence of one eternal God, the immortality of the soul in some form of existence, and the future moral judgment. In an ancient hymn the priest says : " Go on in the right way, and contemplate the sole Gov- ernor of the world. He is One, and of himself * Pausanius, Description of Greece, ii, 35 ; viii, 42. 68 DEPARTED GODS. alone, and to that one all things owe their being. He worketh through all, was never seen by mortal eyes, but doth himself see every one." Our chief sources of information concerning these mysteries must be the, early Christian fathers notably Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius, whose accounts may be received as reliable; Plutarch, who writes as a philosophical historian; and Apuleius, who spins out tales most romantic, and is possibly least worthy of credit. It would seem that the mysteries teach, in a manner highly dramatic, the purest morality. The candidate passes through certain stages of progress during the initiation, by which are symbolized, either in his own personal experi- ence or by spectacular display, his death, judg- ment, and resurrection to a new life. The life of the gods in whose honor the mysteries are celebrated is also represented. By virtue of the sacred rites and teachings connected with the service, and the impressions wrought upon his mind and the change wrought in his heart, he may be happy both in this world and the world to come. So much concerning these mysteries must forever remain concealed, that we can not pro- GODS AND HALF-GODS. 69 nounce with confidence as to the details either of ritual or doctrine. We may, however, offer one or two criticisms, which seem to be fatal to the possibility of any lasting influence towards the regeneration of society. The mysteries were for the few. At a later period, indeed, they admitted all to their secrets; but, from the very nature of the initiatory serv- ice, only the few could understand the sacred meaning. The benefit which they bestowed upon the great mass of the people must have been exceedingly slight. That their influence over the morals and lives of the initiated was health- ful, while the mysteries themselves retained their purity, we gladly admit; but such influence was not, could not be, abiding. Both the greater and the lesser mysteries lost their original purity. They afforded the opportunity for hidden crimes. They concealed uncleanness. Some of these festivals may have been obscene from the begin- ning; others introduced or fostered, or at least allowed and protected, wickedness. The Eleu- sinian mysteries maintained their purity long- est, but even this service broke down at the last. Important among the secondary gods of Greece was Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Semele, the god of the vine and of drunkenness. He intro- 7 70 DEPARTED GODS. duced the vine in Greece, taught its culture, and discovered the exhilarating effects of wine. His worship, whose center was Thebes in Boeotia, was connected with drunken orgies, furious and extravagant revelry, exciting music, wild dances, shrieks, cries, yells, ecstatic ravings, and some- times even bloodshed. This god delivered from grief, and furnished the only medicine for troubles. The frantic ravings of the drunken devotee were received as indications of special inspiration, and his boisterous, senseless, and mad utterances were recognized as prophetic. The god filled the heart with courage, and the body with strength. Similar seems to have been the effect of the gases which rose from pro- phetic springs, or from crevices of the earth in prophetic caves its intoxication leading to re- sponses which were considered oracular, and the interpretation of which called for special qualifi- cations. The Bacchse believed in the much-abused principle that to the pure all things are pure, and this gave license to all uncleanness. "And let every one with pure lips speak that which is propitious, for now will I, according to custom, celebrate with hymns the god Bacchus. Blessed is he who, being favored, knows the mysteries of the gods, keeps his life pure and GODS AND HALF-GODS. 71 his soul initiated into the Bacchic rites, and serves Bacchus, dancing upon the mountains with holy purifications, reverencing the mysteries of the mighty mother Cybele, brandishing the thyr- sus, and crowned with ivy !" * Dionysus frequently met with opposition in his efforts to extend the knowledge and use of the vine. Lycurgus, a Thracian king, was struck blind by Zeus for his rash hostility. Frantic with rage, he slew his own son, mistaking him for a vine. According to another tradition, Ambrosia, in the form of a vine, embraced Lycurgus, and he perished in the deadly grasp. Pentheus, a king of Thebes, opposed the orgiastic ceremonies introduced among the women, and while watch- ing the proceedings was mistaken for an animal by his own mother and her sisters, who, filled with Bacchic fury, seized him, and tore him in pieces. At Orchomenus, the three daughters of Minyas refused to join in the orgies, and were turned into birds. In later times, at the festival of the Agrionia, the priests pursued the women of the race of Minyas, and slew with the sword any whom they could overtake. Even when Dionysus was propitiously received, misfortune came to those who showed him favor. Icarius, a king of Attica, was friendly to him, and was in- * Euripides, The Bacchse. 72 DEPARTED GODS. structed in the mysteries of wine-making; but revealing the secret to the herdsmen and laborers, they became intoxicated, and slew him, throwing his body into a well, or burying it under a tree. His daughter Erigone, finding the spot, hung her- self in grief. There were many Dionysiac festivals. " Crowds of females, clothed in fawn-skins, and bearing the sacred thyrsus, flocked to the solitudes of Parnassus or Cithseron or Taygetus, during the consecrated triennial period, passed the night there with torches, and abandoned themselves to demonstrations of frantic excite- ment, with dancing, and clamorous invocation of the god. The men yielded to a similar impulse, with noisy revels in the streets, sounding the cymbal and tambourine, and carrying the image of the god in procession."* Worship was thought to be most perfect when accompanied with the most thorough drunkenness. The active worship of this god extended widely in Asia. In Phrygia he was connected with Cybele, and followed by Pan, Silenus, Satyrs, and Centaurs. The decay of vegetation was represented as Dionysus slain, and with this meaning he was connected with the mysteries of Eleusis. He symbolized also the productiveness *Grote, History of Greece, Vol. I, p. 26. GODS AND HALF-CODS. 73 of nature. His chief symbols, besides the phal- lus, were the bull, the panther, the ass, and the goat; and his insignia were the ivy-wreath, the thyrsus, the drinking-cup, and sometimes the horn of a bull, which he wore on his forehead. Sometimes his effigy looks out of a bush or low tree. Fruit-growers set up his image in their orchards as a natural tree-stump. The Corinth- ians made two images out of a particular pine- tree, and gave them red faces and gilt bodies. The image of Dionysus was often nothing more than an upright post, with leafy boughs project- ing from the head and body. The only resem- blance to the human figure was a bearded mask to represent the head. There were no arms, but the object was draped in a mantle. The religion of Greece suffered greatly from this most degrad- ing and licentious worship. Hades, "the unseen," was the ruler of the infernal realm. The "house of Hades" was a dark abode, deep down in the earth, and those who would invoke him, rapped on the ground to attract his attention. Another view placed his realm in the far West, beyond the ocean. He \v;is a shadowy deity, little worshiped anywhere. Pluto, the god of wealth, usurped his place to some extent, but he ever maintained his position in poetry. His wife, Proserpine, whom he ab- 74 DEPARTED GODS. ducted from the earth pure, chaste, and kindly, for one in her unenviable position was queen of the dead. Her votaries abstained from beans, pomegranates, apples, fish, and domestic fowls. Hecate was the goddess of magic, and was closely connected with Artemis. Her worship flourished especially among the wild tribes of Samothrace. Thessaly, and elsewhere. She was a moon-goddess, and magic rites were performed by the light of the moon. She lighted wander- ers on their way by night, and was the patroness of roads. Pillars, called Hecatsea, stood at cross-roads and door-ways, especially in Athens. Hecate was also the goddess of fertility, wealth, and power. Dogs, honey, and black ewe-lambs were presented to her as offerings. She was represented in triple form, and her six hands held torches, with sometimes a snake, a whip, a dagger, or a key. Dogs were often at her side. ^Eolus was the god of the winds, which he confined in a vast cavern, or sent forth at his will. "Here ^Eolus, in cavern vast, With bolt and barrier fetters fast Rebellious storm and howling blast. They, with the rock's reverberant roar, Chafe, blustering round their prison door; GODS AND HALF-GODS. 75 He, throned on high, the scepter sways, Controls their moods, their wrath allays. Break but that scepter, sea and land, And heaven's ethereal deep, Before them they would whirl like sand, And through the void air sweep."* He dwelt in an ./Eolian Island, which floated on the sea, and was surrounded by an impreg- nable brazen wall ; and up to this wall ran a smooth rock. He has six daughters, whom he gives in marriage to his six sons. These signify the twelve winds. They always banquet near their dear father and good mother. The sweet- odored dwelling is charmed with musical sounds during the day, but at night all sleep on beds of richest tapestry. Ulysses during his wanderings visited this god, and was entertained for a month. When at length he asked for permission to depart, the god prepared for him an escort. Having slain an ox nine years old, he gave the much-traveled wanderer the bladder, in which he bound the ways of the blustering winds, that they might not es- cape and make the voyage one of danger. He bound them in the hollow ship with a shining silver rope, and "not even a little breath might escape." But when his companions, thinking to secure treasures, cut the bag open, the winds es- * Virgil, The ^Eneid, Conington's Translation, i, 52-69. 76 DEPARTED GODS. caped, and Ulysses was driven back to the home of JEolus, who, however, spurned him away as one hated of the gods. Nereus, the old man of the sea " men call him old because he is unerring as well as mild ; neither doth he forget the laws, but knoweth just and gentle purposes " trusty and truthful, was friendly to men, and full of wisdom. His fifty daughters, who presented most valuable gifts to men, were called Nereids, and were personifica- tions of the quiet, peaceful, and propitious sea. Proteus was another god of the sea, full of wisdom and knowledge, which, however, he would not impart save under compulsion. At noonday, while he was sleeping in a cave by the sea, he could be surprised, caught, bound, and forced to answer any questions which the inquirer wished to propose, though he always tried to escape by assuming rapidly, one after the other, a multitude of forms. He was the subject of Poseidon, and shepherded the droves of fish beneath the bil- lows. Themis was the personification of traditional custom. Homer and others made her a goddess. By command of Zeus, she calls the gods to an assembly, and summons or disperses assemblies of men. She possessed several temples and altars. III. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS: PRIESTS AND ORACLES. THE Greeks peopled all nature woods, springs, rivers, hills, mountains, meadows, caves, ocean with nymphs. These strange be- ings sometimes carried away the souls of men to dwell with them, sometimes formed peaceful unions with men, and sometimes took complete possession of both soul and body. In such cases as the last, the possessed person lost his own wit to be sure, but thereby gained a superior wis- dom. Nymphs were worshiped especially by the rural populations upon whom they possessed a strong hold. The nymphs of rivers and fountains were called Naiads ; those of the sea were Nereids and Oceanides ; those of the forests, groves, and trees, Dryads and Hamadryads, and those of the mount- ains, Oreads. The Muses were originally a variety of nymphs. They were the daughters of Zeus, and presided over the nine principal departments of letters. Upon whomsoever they look at his birth, " on the tongue of such a one they shed a hon- 77 78 DEPARTED GODS. eyed dew, and from his lips drop gentle words ; so then the peoples all look to him as he decideth questions of law with righteous judgments ; and he speaketh counsels unerringly." The Oceanides are daughters of Oceanus and Tethys, and are three thousand in number. " Three thousand nymphs Of oceanic line, in beauty tread With ample step, and, far and wide dispersed, Haunt the green earth and azure depths of lakes, A blooming race of glorious goddesses."* . The Ocean-nymphs, beholding the misery in- flicted on Prometheus by the power of Zeus, their hearts moved to pity at the sight of his awful sufferings, cry the prayer : ' ' May never the all-ruling Zeus set his rival power Against my thoughts; Nor may I ever fail The gods, with holy feasts Of sacrifices, drawing near, Beside the ceaseless stream Of father Ocean : Nor may I err in words; But this abide with me, And never fade away."f Galatea was a sea-nymph, the daughter of Nereus and Doris. Most unsuitably, as so fre- *Hesiod, The Theogony Elton's Translation, p. 300. t^Eschylus, Prometheus, 526-535. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 79 quently happens in Greek story, Polyphemus, the Cyclops, celebrated in Homeric verse, falls in love with the beautiful nymph. His love, however, meets with no return. Galatea overhears from afar the words of the monster beseeching her love. He praises her beauty. She is fairer than the leaf of the snow-white privet, more blooming than the meadows, more slender than the tall alder, brighter than glass, more wanton than the tender kid, smoother than the shells worn by the continual floods, more pleasing than the winter's sun or the summer's shade, more beauteous than the apple, more sightly than the lofty plane-tree, clearer than ice, sweeter than the ripened grape, softer than the down of the swan, and more re- freshing than curdled milk. He calls upon her to raise her beauteous head out of the azure sea, and not to refuse his presents.* In the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, we have a full description of the Wood-nymphs. Speak- ing of her son, the goddess says : "But him, when first he sees the sun's clear light, The nymphs shall rear, the mountain-haunting nymphs, Deep-bosomed, who on this mountain great And holy dwell, who neither goddesses Nor women are. Their life is long; they eat Ambrosial food, and with the Deathless frame The Beauteous dance. With them, in the recess *Ovid, Metamorphoses, cf. Riley's Translation, pp. 471, 472. 80 DEPARTED GODS Of lovely caves, well-spying Argos-slayer And the Sileiii mix in love. Straight pines, Or oaks high-headed, spring with them upon The earth man-feeding, soon as they are born ; Trees fair and flourishing, on the high hills Lofty they stand ; the Deathless' sacred grove Men call them, and with iron never cut. But when the fate of death is drawing near, First wither on the earth the beauteous trees, The bark around them wastes, the branches fall, And the nymph's soul at the same moment leaves The sun's fair light." In the Argonautics of Apollonius Rhodius, Phineus explains the cause of the poverty of Persebius : " But he was paying the penalty laid on His father's crime ; for one time, cutting trees Alone among the hills, he spurned the prayer Of the Hamadryas nymph, who, weeping sore, With earnest words besought him not to cut The trunk of an oak-tree, which, with herself Coeval, had endured for many a year; But, in the pride of youth, he foolishly Cut it ; and to him and to his race the nymph Gave ever after a lot profitless." Charon, of Lampsacus, relates that Rhoecus or- dered his slaves to prop up an oak which was ready to fall, and thereby saved the life of the nymph. In gratitude she desired him to ask any reward, and she would bestow upon him the wished-for boon. He besought her love, and it NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 81 was granted. In the course of time he made a rough reply to her messenger, at which she be- came so incensed that she deprived him of sight. Calypso, the beautiful nymph who dwelt in an island, retained Odysseus seven years in her fair abode. The divine messenger from Zeus vis- ited her, and commanded her to release the cap- tive. A large fire was burning on the hearth, and at a distance the smell of cedar and frankin- cense, which were burning, shed odor through the island. The nymph was singing with beau- tiful voice while she wove with a golden shuttle. But a flourishing grove of alder, poplar, and sweet-smelling cypress, had sprung up and sur- rounded her grot, wherein birds with spreading wings, owls, hawks, and wide-tongued crows in- terested in maritine employments slept. The vine in the strength of its prime grew about the hollow grot, loaded with clusters of grapes. Four fountains of clear water flowed in different di-. rections, and around all were soft meadows of violets and parsley. There was every delight to please the eye, charm the ear, and captivate the heart. Even an immortal, were he to visit this beautiful grot and its surroundings, when he gazed upon its charm, would be filled with delight at the prospect. * * Homer, The Odysseus, v, 59-74. 82 DEPARTED GODS. Calypso, divine one of the goddesses, sat on a shining, brilliant throne, and entertained Hermes with ambrosia and ruby nectar. The gift of im- mortality was at her disposal. She offered this gift to Odysseus, with the hope of gaining his per- manent regard. Gladstone finds in Homer's nymphs of Ithaca evidences of Phoenician influence. They were the objects of particular popular worship. Ith- akos and his brothers constructed their grove and fountain near the city, and from thence the city was supplied with water. Here also was an altar, which received the offerings of those who chanced to pass the spot. Near the landing- place of Odysseus was a cave, sacred to the nymphs, where the hero had formerly wor- shiped. This landing-place seems to have been named by the Phoenicians, and hence it is sup- posed that the worship had a Phoenician char- acter. These Ithacan nymphs are water-nymphs. Circe is a Phoenician personage, and her four servants are born of the fountains, groves, and consecrated rivers. The grove included the fountain within. Nymphs were also worshiped in Trinacrie, the island of the sun. This also would suggest an Eastern character. These nymphs of Ithaca are associated with Hermes. Over the city rises the hill of Hermes. NYMPBS AND MONSTERS. 83 When the pious Eumaios banqueted on the slaughtered pig, he cut it into seven portions, and gave one of these portions to the nymphs and Hermes. Now Hermes is the son of Maia. Homer affords no direct evidence of her extrac- tion, but all Greek tradition places it within the Phoenician circle. In Scherie, Hermes was the god to whom was offered the evening libation, and Scherie is clearly Phoenician. Poseidon seems to have been its presiding deity. Hermes, in the Odysseus, replaces Iris as the messenger of the gods. Was this because of her Phoenician character? Iris is distinctively Hellenic, and may have been a creation of Homer. It may also be that, because of his Phoenician character, he became the guide and guardian of Odysseus in his eastern wanderings. Calypso is a Phoe- nician personage, and Hermes seems to have been in general communication with this nymph. His office as conductor of the dead supplies addi- tional evidence to the same effect. Such are the several points made by Gladstone in his most excellent article on " Phoenician Affinities of Ithaca."* We are constantly meeting with Phoenician * Gladstone, The Nineteenth Century, August, 1889, pp. 284, 285; cf. Homer, The Odysseus, xvii, 304-311; xiii, 103, 347, 349 ; xiii, 104, et alibi; xvii, 240 ; x, 348-351 ; xvi, 470; xiv, 435 vii, 136-138 ; vi, 266 ; xii, 390. 84 DEPARTED GODS. and other foreign influences in the religion of the Greeks ; and in the early religion it is fre- quently a difficult task to determine how much is imported and how much indigenous. Glad- stone is a recognized master in Homeric studies, and, though not always reliable, has done much toward the .elucidation of old Greek life and the solution of hard problems. The nymph Arethusa was changed by Artemis into a fountain, that she might escape the ardent pursuit of the river-god Alpheus, who aspired to her hand. But the god, as the story goes, was not frustrated, but passed beneath the sea from Peloponnesus to the island Ortygia, whither his beloved had taken refuge. Milton, in his "Ar- cades," alludes to the story : "That renowned flood, so often sung, Divine Alpheus, who by sacred sluice Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." The story is celebrated in mythology, and de- serves its popularity. Perhaps we can do no better than to let Arethusa relate her own story as she told it to Ceres, as preserved in Ovid : "I was one of the nymphs which exist in Achaia ; nor did any one more eagerly skim along the glades than myself, nor with more industry set the nets. But though the reputation for beauty was never sought by me, although, too, NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 85 I was of robust make ; still T had the name of being beautiful. But my appearance, when so much commended, did not please me ; and I, like a country lass, blushed at those endowments of person in which other females are wont to take a pride, and I deemed it a crime to please. I remember I was returning weary from the Stymphalian wood. The weather was hot, and my toil had redoubled the intense heat. I found a stream gliding on without any eddies, without any noise, and clear to the bottom, through which every pebble, at so great a depth, might be counted, and which you could hardly suppose to be in motion. The hoary willows and poplars, nourished by the water, furnished a shade, spon- taneously produced, along the shelving banks." The nymph, having disrobed, was enjoying a refreshing bath in the cooling waters of the beautiful stream, when the god, moved with pas- sion, sought her love. She fled over fields and mountains, until wearied with the exertion and nearly overtaken, when she cried to Artemis for help. " The goddess was moved, and, taking one of the dense clouds, she threw it over me. The river looked about for me, concealed in the dark- ness, and, in his ignorance, sought about the en- circling cloud; and twice unconsciously did he go around the place where the goddess had coa- 86 DEPARTED QODS. cealed me, and twice did he cry, ' Ho, Arethusa !' What, then, were my feelings, in my wretched- ness? . . . Yet he does not depart; for no further does he trace any prints of my feet. He watches the cloud and the spot. A cold per- spiration takes possession of my limbs, thus be- sieged, and azure-colored drops distill from all my body. ... I was changed into a stream. But still the river recognized the waters, the objects of his love ; and, having laid aside the shape of a mortal, which he had assumed, he was changed into his waters, that he might mingle with me. Thereupon the Delian goddess cleaved the ground. Sinking, I was carried through dark caverns to Ortygia, which, being dear to me from the sur- name of my own goddess, was the first to intro- duce me to the upper air." * The stories of the loves of the nymphs with gods and men form many charming pictures, though often at the expense of the reputation of both for morality and conjugal fidelity. They were frequently changed into the forms of vari- ous objects, both animate and inanimate. They were generally mild in disposition and friendly to men, but it was not well to fall into their power. *0vid, The Metamorphoses, Riley's Translation, Vol. Ill, pp. 184, 185 ; cf. Virgil, /Eneid, 694 ; Achilles Tatius, I. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 87 The Charites were goddesses, three in num- ber, whose early names were unknown. The chief seat of their worship was Orchomenus. Stones, believed to have fallen from heaven, were their symbols, and were preserved in their tem- ples. Charis is an epithet of " the light-illumined clouds which seem to escort the dawn;" and the goddess Charis was the goddess of early fresh and vigorous life. Like Aphrodite, she resem- bled Persephone; and, like Hebe, she was often associated with Hera. In later art the Graces, or Charites, are often represented holding ears of corn in their hands. In Sparta and Athens there were two Charites ; but generally in Greek mythology they became three in number. Their worship was celebrated with secret rites. They became, in later development, the impersonation of grace and cheerfulness, both in nature and in moral life. The Erinnyes, or Furies, were the stern aven- gers of iniquity, whose pity the people tried to win by complimenting them with the name Eu- menides, or "merciful beings." They were three in number, and when they acquired names these names meant Hatred, Jealousy, and Revenge. But we can not speak of the many divinities of the second rank, though it were a pleasant task to recall their characters, adventures, and 88 DEPARTED GODS. worship. We must also omit a multitude of di- vinities of a still lower rank. They act as at- tendants upon the great gods. Many others are mere shadowy forms, and little more than per- sonifications of phases, acts, and circumstances in huma.n life, qualities of the mind, attributes of the body, and facts of nature. Several of the attendants of the gods are beautiful characters, and patterns of grace and fidelity full of sunshine and good cheer. Iris is the messenger of Zeus. She is called golden- winged and rosy-armed, and often carries the herald's staff. This goddess is the personifica- tion of the rainbow, which unites heaven and earth. The Latin poet has retained her Greek character : " So, down from heaven fair Iris flies, On saffron wings impearl'd with dew, That flash against the sunlit skies Full many a varied hue; Then stands at Dido's head, and cries: ' This lock to Dis I bear away, And free you from your load of clay !' So shears the lock the vital heats Disperse, and breath in air retreats."* Kratos and Bia are servants of Hephaestus; and the Horse, who, with the Charites, work the garments of Aphrodite with flowers which retain * Virgil, The .Eneid, iv, 700-705. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 89 the fragrance of nature, are the attendants of this goddess of love. Boreas and the other winds are the servants of ^Eolus. Boreas, the north wind, is rough and powerful. He carried off Oreithyia, the beauti- ful daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, and made her queen of the winds. They dwelt on Mount Hsemus, in Thrace. He had an altar near Ilissus, and a festival was held in his honor. Hebe is the cup-bearer of the gods, and, like Aphrodite, is called the most beautiful of the gods. In Phlius she was worshiped in a temple on the citadel to which the right of asylum was attached. She was the personification of the blooming freshness and youth of nature, and again of the eternal youth which belongs to the gods. At the apotheosis of Heracles, when he was reconciled to Hera, he received Hebe as his wife, and they were worshiped together in Athens. Greek mythology is full of monstrous births the Cyclopes, the Harpies, the Minotaur, the Gorgons, the Nemean Lion, the Lernoean Hydra, the Dragon of the Hesperides, the Centaurs, Echidna, Chimaera, Cerberus the Dog of Hades, Typhoeus, and the like. Classic story has made their names familiar. 90 DEPARTED GODS. Chimsera is a monster "breathing resistless fire, fierce and huge, fleet-footed, as well as strong. This monster had three heads one indeed of a grim-visaged lion, one of a goat, and another of a serpent a fierce dragon; in front a lion, a dragon behind, and in the midst a goat breath- ing forth the dread strength of burning fire." Typhoeus is the youngest son of Tartarus and Gsea. " Whose hands, indeed, are apt for deeds on the score of strength, and untiring the feet of the strong god; and from his shoulders there were a hundred heads of a serpent, a fierce dragon, playing with dusky tongues, and from the eyes in his wondrous heads fire sparkled beneath the brows; whilst from all his heads fire was gleaming, as he looked keenly. In all his terrible heads, too, were voices, sending forth every kind of sound ineffable. For one while, indeed, they would utter sounds so as for the gods to understand ; and at another time again the voice of a loud-bellowing bull, un- tamable in force, and proud in utterance ; at an- other time, again, that of a lion, possessing a HERACLES SLAYING THE HYDRA. THESKUS AND THE MINOTAUR. 9' 92 DEPARTED GODS. daring spirit; at another, yet again, they would sound like to whelps, wondrous to hear; and at another, he would hiss, and the lofty mountains resound. And, in sooth, then would there have been done a deed past remedy, and he, even he, would have reigned over mortals and immortals, unless, I wot, the sire of gods and men had quickly observed him." Zeus conquered Ty- phoeus, and hurled him into wide Tartarus.* The belief in these monstrous forms we can not spare our time to describe others must have exercised a profound influence upon the popular religion. Some may have been loved, some wor- shiped, many feared, and all respected. They furnished the material from which many stories for the nursery were constructed. Children were frightened into obedience by relating to them stories of bugbears and hobgoblins Lamia, Gorgo, Ephialtes, Mormolyca, Akko, Alphito, Empousa. Superstitious terrors were created and fed by such nonsense.f The Greeks prayed and offered sacrifices, and in this manner they recognized the blessings re- ceived from the heavenly divinities, and besought their continuance. The devoted Greek filled his *Hesiod, The Theogony, pp. 18, 41. t Becker, Charicles, pp. 224,225; Lucian, Dialogues of the Gods t p. 37 ; Theocritus, Idyll xv, 40. NYMPHS AND MOXSTEH*. 93 house with shrines, and presented thereon offer- ings to secure the especial favor and protection of his own peculiar patron deities. He pravcil both morning and evening, and did not fail to conclude each meal with a hymn or prayer. But this family worship did not suffice, ex- cept when life was running smoothly. When sickness or danger was felt to be near, there were prayers, sacrifices, and vows to meet the special emergency. The religious festivals of the Greeks na- tional, political, tribal, and others were numer- ous and important. The perfection of the music, the brilliancy of the processions, the theatrical contests, the magnificent equipages, the splendor and excitement of the scene, and the many races and games, made these festivals attractive and joyous. Sacrifices were offered, and the people feasted on the flesh of the sacrificial victims. The great festivals the Olympian, the Delphian, the Isthmian, and the Nemean were expected with eagerness, and celebrated with enthusiasm. The lesser festivals had also their own impor- tance, and all were marked by brightness, cheer- fulness, joyousness, feasting and dancing, and general good cheer. This, indeed, was a distin- guishing mark of the Greek religion light, grace, pleasure, gladness. 94 DEPARTED GODS. . The gods, however, could be offended, and then visited upon individuals, families, cities, and nations, calamities great and terrible. The Furies were sometimes the agents of the gods in their inflictions of punishment. The crimes most hateful to the gods were blasphemy, sacrilege, perjury, treachery, incest, and others of similar character. Fierce demons were sent to torment FOOT-RACE, OLYMPIAN FESTIVAL the guilty soul, and peace was only possible when, by long and tedious rites, the gods had been pro- pitiated. Some sins seem to have placed the offender beyond the reach of mercy, and human sacrifices were the only possible propitiation for certain national sins. The general rule, however, was facility in se- curing pardon. It could not be expected that the people would be better than the gods whom 95 they worshiped, and it was not difficult to find among the gods crimes similar to their own. The gods, therefore, might be offended at their behavior, but would accept a slight offering as a sufficient satisfaction. This made sin easy. Besides the personal, household, and public worship as performed regularly, or in special emergencies, and in connection with the national, tribal, and local festivals the mysteries occu- pied a prominent place in the religion of the Greeks. The profound secrecy, the music, the processions, the awful meanings, the unexpected and sudden transitions, the profound symbolism, and the wide popularity, powerfully attracted to these mysteries. They may have taught little theology, but doubtless they held close to the prevailing religious beliefs. Devoted to some chosen god, they symbolized his mythologic life, and in that manner ever commemorated his his- tory. They also symbolized something beyond the popular interpretation of these myths; but how much beyond, and what, can not with cer- tainty, be determined. Their general influence upon the religion can not have been beneficial. The Greeks, like many heathen nations, were much devoted to religious observances. Paul noticed in Athens an altar to the "Unknown God." Sometimes the name of the Supreme 96 DEPARTED GODS. God was considered too sacred to be pronounced or written. There might also be a fear lest, in the multiplicity of gods to whom sacrifices were offered, some god might be forgotten. And then, too, it might not be known to what god thanks were due for some special favor. When the Athenians were afflicted by a plague, and were enjoined by the priestess at Delphi to purify the city, they sent for Epi- menides, a Cretan philosopher, especially be- loved, as they believed, by the gods. This was in the forty-sixth Olympiad. Coming to the city, he took some black sheep and some white ones, and led them up to the Areopagus. There he set them free, and let them wander about at their pleasure. Attendants followed them, and as often as one after the other lay down, it was sacrificed to the patron deity of the spot. In this manner the deadly plague was stayed. And, says Diogenes Laertius, there may still be found, in the different boroughs, altars without names. These he considers memorials of the propitiation of the gods which then took place.* We may consider these sheep as scapegoats. In wandering about in the city, they gathered to themselves the plague or plague-spirits, and * Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, p. 51. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 97 bore them each to her own special deity, and there yielded them up with her life. We may compare another sacrifice. Barley mixed with wheat, or cakes made therefrom, were laid on the altar of Zeus Polieus, on the Acropolis. Oxen were driven around the altar, and the ox which first ate of the offering was thereby designated for the sacrifice. The ax and knife to be used were sanctified by being wet in water brought by certain maidens. The weapons were sharpened and handed to two butchers. One felled the ox with his ax, threw the ax away, and fled. The other cut the throat of the ox with his knife, threw the knife away, and fled. The ox was skinned, and all present joined in a sacrificial meal. The hide was stuffed with straw, and yoked to a plow. A trial was then held to determine who murdered the ox. The maidens charged it upon those who sharp- ened the weapons; the latter accused those who handed them to the butchers; those who handed the weapons to the butchers blamed the butchers ; and the butchers blamed the ax and knife, which were finally found guilty, condemned, and cast into the sea. In this case the ox may have rep- resented the corn-spirit, sacrificed at the end of the harvest to become incarnate, with renewed vigor, with the beginning of the following season. 98 DEPARTED GODS. Paul, in Acts, mentions an altar to the "Un- known God." Pausanius says that at Athens there were altars to gods whose names were un- known. Philostratus bears testimony to the same fact. "Among the Greeks, as among the Italicans, religion was a matter of personal conscience, and the full exercise of divine wor- ship a personal right of every freeman. No privileged caste stood between gods and men. Every Hellene may offer sacri- fice and prayer without any THE HOMERIC ZETTS. stranger's medi- ation. The mission of religion is to accompany every public and domestic action, to sanctify every day, to consecrate every labor and every pleasure. This object is achieved by man's putting himself in communication with the gods. Sacrifices are nothing but the expression of the communion of life between gods and men, which should constantly be renewed. The AT.V/'//.s AND MOXSTERS. 99 sacrificing human being is a guest of the gods, and is thought worthy of sitting at the table of the gods, like Tantalus, the friend of the gods, and like the blameless ^Ethiopians, whose meal is shared by the Homeric Zeus. And since this friendship of the gods is the fundamental condi- tion of every human blessing, it is also accessible to every member of the people, and every one whose hands are clean may at the altar assure himself anew of his possession of this com- munion with the gods." * A particular priesthood was necessary to give permanency and regularity to the worship. Par- ticular families, from long connection with the worship of any deity, would be especially well qualified to administer their worship according to established rules and traditions. There would easily arise a priestly hereditary nobility, who, though not forming a caste, would yet possess great importance and dignity in the eyes of the people. These priestly families would soon be- come the depositaries of knowledge concerning religious services, and the conservators of ancient ideas and customs. They preserved the purity of the forms of worship, and guarded the invi- olability of sacred things, while they supported and strengthened the State in many ways ter- *Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. II, p. 3. 100 DEPARTED GODS. rifying evil-doers, cursing enemies in the name of the gods, and solemnly blessing all acts of State worship. Although the power of the priests at times was great, they never asserted themselves as a hierarchy. In fact, they were frequently split up into factions, and this would be a powerful check upon any tendencies danger- ous to the State. The mantic art, in its origin, was not con- nected with the priesthood. Gods, men, and things were considered, in some sense, one in government. Unusual phenomena in earth, air, or sky were received as divine hints. Those whose hearts were nearest the gods and nature could read these omens. Knowing the divine will, they could demand a hearing, and insist upon obedience. Especially in sacrifices the Greeks looked for divine revelations ; and hence everything connected with the offering of sacri- fices was subjected to the closest scrutiny, that no admonition or notification of the gods might escape attention. But this low kind of prophecy could not chain the mind of the intellectual and cultured, however mighty might be its influence among the mass of the people. With the worship of Apollo the mantic art finds its highest development. The god speaks through the mouths of girls and women, whose NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 101 own consciousness, in moments of prophetic frenzy, is so lost that they have neither will nor understanding in the words which they pro- nounce. Their words must be interpreted. Here the mantic art comes into relation with the priestly. Divination, in its best work, was drawn to fixed places and special days. There soon arose influential oracles, consecrated by divine omens and revered associations, and in their ad- ministration the priests acquired new power and dignity. These oracles became centers of culture; and the priests were so well versed in national affairs, and so schooled by experience, that the answers they gave to many questions were char- acterized by much wisdom. Certain questions, beyond the reach of their wisdom, they might refuse to answer as improper; or the answers might be worded in a manner so ambiguous that it would be impossible thereafter to prove them false. Hence the oracles long maintained their influence, and especially the Delphic oracle was a seat of wonderful power. It bound the Hel- lenes together as a nation, and it bound true worshipers to the will of Zeus, while it insisted upon purity of life. The priests of Delphic Apollo baptized with Castalian water, but warned the candidates : " Deceive not yourselves. For the good, indeed, one drop of the sacred spring 102 DEPARTED GODS. suffices ; but from the bad, no sea of water shall wash away the pollution of sin."* The several oracles were maintained in har- monious relations with themselves and with all Greece. The sanctuary was the safest place in which to deposit money as well as all kinds of articles of value, and hence became an institu- tion somewhat similar to modern banking estab- lishments. The oracle fostered the beginnings of literature, and exercised a weighty influence over Greek art and architecture. Every colony was sent out and planted under the protection of Apollo, and, in true missionary spirit, carried his worship to many foreign coasts. The oracle was also closely connected with markets, trades, and all commercial enterprise. The calendar was placed under the supervision of the priests, and while the civil year was not forgotten, the sacred year came into general use. Great national fes- tivals worked harmoniously with the oracles in maintaining a national spirit. The Delphic Amphictyony established a definite number of deities, and the priests guarded against the in- troduction of new gods. Delphi, in the days of the splendor and great- ness of its power, was the spiritual center of all arts, and united them all for religious purposes. * Curtius, History of Greece, Vol. II, p. 27. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 103 " In honor of the same god the columns rise to bear the tabulature of marble ; the courts, as well as the pediments and metopes of the temple, are filled with statuary; and the inner walls of the temples are adorned with woven tapestry, the place of which is afterwards taken by the art of painting. The same divine glory is served by the hymn and the song of victory, by music and the dance. Therefore the Greeks conceived the .Muses as a choir, and were unable to represent to themselves the single goddesses as individuals separated from the rest of the assembly ; and in Apollo they saw the leader of this choir of the Muses. It was no poetic metaphor for the Greeks, but a religious belief, which they dis- played in a grand group of statuary in the front of the temple at Delphi. And thus the Delphic Apollo really stands at the center of all the higher tendencies of scientific inquiry and artis- tic effects, as the guiding genius of spiritual life, which he, surrounded by the chosen heads of the nations, conducts to a grand and clear expression of its totality, by this means founding an ideal unity of the Greek people." * The Greeks did not recognize sin in the Chris- tian sense, though several of the philosophers and poets approximated to the idea. The gods or * Cnrtius, History of Greece, Vol. II, pp. 100, 101. 104 DEPARTED GODS. fate were considered quite as responsible for sin as man himself. Wrong-doing of every kind was most frequently expressed by ate with its cor- responding verb. " The radical signification of the word seems 'to be a befooling a depriving one of his senses and his reason, as by unsea- sonable sleep and excess of wine, joined with the influence of evil companions, and the power of destiny or the deity. Hence the Greek imagi- nation, which impersonated every great power, very naturally conceived of Ate as a person, a sort of omnipresent and universal cause of folly and sin, of mischief and misery, who,' though the daughter of Jupiter, yet once fooled or misled Jupiter himself, and thenceforth, cast down from heaven to earth, walks with light feet over the heads of men, and makes all things go wrong. Hence, too, when men come to their senses, and see what folly and wrong they have perpetrated, they cast the blame on Ate, and, so, ultimately, on Jupiter and the gods."* There was something more than an under- tone of sadness in many expressions concerning life. From Homer, onward, the low lamentation may be heard. Sophocles says, mournfully: ' ' Happiest beyond compare Never to taste of life; * Tyler, Theology of the Greek Poets, pp. 174, 175. NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. 105 Happiest in order next, Being born, with quickest speed Thither again to turn From whence we came." Simonides says : " Sorrow follows sorrow so quickly that not even the air can penetrate be- tween them." There is no relief in expectation, in the life to come. Indeed, the future, when held in seri- ous contemplation, is, if possible, worse than the present. "This world alone was real alone offered true happiness ; the other was the gloomy, joyless, lower world. Ulysses, in Homer, sees the dead, as shadows, greedily drink the blood which, for a moment at least, restores to them real life; and Achilles would rather linger upon earth in the lowest station than be a king among the shades." Anacreon sings in sad strains: "My temples are gray, and white my head; beautiful youth is gone. Not much re- mains of sweet life. Therefore I often sigh, fearing Tartarus, dreadful abyss of Hades. Full of horror is the descent thither, and whoever has once gone down there, never returns." * Whether life or death were better was per- haps an evenly-balanced question. Those who believed in a future existence, were in fear of TJhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism, pp. 72-74. 106 DEPARTED GODS. death. Those who conceived this life to be the all, sought to escape its evils in death. The writings of the poets teem with appear- ances of the dead in visible form, to avenge themselves on those who did them ill during life. Much attention was paid to the propitiation of the shades of the departed. It was believed that the ghosts of the dead might be summoned to life to give advice to the living, or to de- nounce before them the criminal. If the mur- derer wiped his weapon on the head of the vic- tim, or wore under his arm a piece of flesh from the body of the murdered man, he need fear no injury from the avenging spirit, since his power for evil would thereby be destroyed. When Jason, with the aid of the magic wiles of Medea, murdered her brother Absyrtus, he three times licked up the black blood of the hero, and three times spat it out from his mouth, and in this manner made expiation of the bloody treachery. At a later date the two criminals resorted to Circe, to be purified from the unatoned blood- shed. She slew the young of a sow above their heads, and wetted their hands in its blood, and poured out unnamed libations. Then she burnt upon the hearth a soothing sop of honey, oil, and meal, while she offered up her prayers. * * Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, iv. THE CHOICE OF HERACLES. 107 108 DEPARTED GODS. The use of the ordeal handling red-hot iron, passing through fire, and so on was common among the Greeks.* We gladly record the fact that all the Greeks were not in this case. Many, with the spirit of faith and the purpose of righteousness, took a more cheerful view of life, and saw in the future a brighter prospect. This was illustrated in the choice of Heracles. Some of these elect, with an instinctive faith in the Father-God, trod the common walks of life; others were those rare souls whose names are still great in the world's literature. These, however, only point to oases in the spiritual desert. Among those who dwelt nearest the heart of God, Socrates was pre-eminent. He lived a pure and noble life; he met death with philosophic, and we might say Christian, composure ; and he lives immortal in the works of Plato, his illustri- ous disciple. We may recall certain choice pas- sages in his death-discourses : "A man who is good for anything, ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he *jEschylus, Cheophori, 32, 136, 315, 333, 479; Eumenides, 94, et seq. ; Euripides, Hecuba, i, et seq. ; Heliodorus, Ethiopics, vi, 14 ; Sophocles, Electra, 443-446 ; Antigone, 264-266 ; Tibul- lus, i, 2, 23; Maximus Tyrius, xiv, 2; Plato, Laws, x; Apuleius, Metamorphoses, ii ; Plutarch, Those Who are Punished by the Deity Late, 17, 22. .V Y MI'HS A XD MONS TERS. 1 09 ought only to consider whether, in doing any- thing, he is doing right or wrong acting the part of a good man or of a bad." "The diffi- culty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness ; for that runs faster than death." " Wherefore, judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a truth that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my ac- cusers or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them. . . . The hour of departure has ar- rived, and we go our ways I to die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows." "I am confident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil." " Sim- mias, how strange that is ! I am not very likely to persuade other men that I do not regard my present situation as a misfortune, if I am unable 10 110 DEPARTED GODS. to persuade you, and you will keep fancying that I am at all more troubled now than at any other time. Will you not allow that I have as much of the spirit of prophecy in me as the swans ? For they, when they perceive that they must die, having sung all their life long, do then sing more than ever, rejoicing in the thought that they are about to go away to the gods whose ministers they are. . . . And I too, believing myself to be the consecrated servant of the same God, and the fellow-servant of the swans, and thinking that I have received from my Master gifts of prophecy which are not in- ferior to theirs, would not go out of life less merrily than the swans." Crito asked how he would be buried. Socrates replied : " In any way that you like; only you must get hold of me, and take care that I do not walk away from you." Then he turned to the other friends who were with him in his last hour, and added, with a smile: "I can not make Crito believe that I am the same Socrates who have been talking and conducting the argument; he fancies that I am the other Socrates whom he will soon see a dead body, and he asks, How shall he bury me? And though I have spoken many words in the endeavor to show that, when I have drunk the poison, I shall leave you, and go to the joys NYMPHS AND MONSTERS. Ill of the blessed these words of mine, with which I comforted you and myself, have had, as I perceive, no effect upon Crito. And therefore I want you to be surety for me now, as he was surety for me at the trial ; but let the promise be of another sort for he was my surety to the judges that I would remain; but you must be my surety to him that I shall not remain, but go away and depart; and then he will suffer less at my death, and not be grieved when he sees my body being burned or buried. I would not have him sorrow at my hard lot, or say at the burial, Thus we lay out Socrates ; or, Thus we follow him to the grave or bury him; for false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you are bury- ing my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best." * * Plato, Jowett's Translation, Vol. I, pp. 326, 336, 338, 339, 399, 413, 414, 449. II. IfoUguiu uf fljB (Efrusrans. THE RELIGION OF THE ETRUSCANS. THE Etruscans left no literature, yet there are brief notices of their religion in the works of classic authors, and abundant illustra- tions in the remains of native works of art. These must, at the present at least, be our chief sources of information with respect to their wor- ship. There are also numerous Etruscan se- pulchral inscriptions; but the language is still insoluble ; and even were it otherwise, legends so brief would possess but little value. Relying, then, on the reports of foreign authors who wrote long after the Etruscans had ceased to ex- ist as a nation, and had been subjected to foreign rule, and long after their religion had been mod- ified by the pressure and introduction of alien and sometimes hostile elements, we must rest satisfied with general and imperfect results. The Etruscans were intensely religious. "With Etruria, religion was an all-pervading principle, the very atmosphere of her exist- ence, a leaven operating on the entire mass of society, a constant pressure ever felt in one form or other a form admitting no rival, all-ruling, all-regulating, all-requiring." 115 116 DEPARTED GODS. Livy calls the Etruscans "a race which, in- asmuch as it excelled in the art of religious ob- servances, was more devoted to them than any other nation." Arnobius says that Etruria was "the creator and parent of superstition." The very name of the nation, Tusci, is derived by some authorities from thuein, "to sacrifice," and especially "to make offerings to the gods." The Etruscans were celebrated for the zeal and scru- pulous care with which they practiced the vari- ous observances of its rites and ceremonies.* Besides angels and demons, there were three general classes of divinities : the deities of heaven, the deities of earth, and the deities of the under-world. Archaeological research is still making revelations of new forms of gods and spirits; but of not a few of these we know not even the names. Tina was the chief of the heavenly gods, and wielded the thunder-bolt. He was the god of the sky, and may have been originally the heaven itself like the Chinese Tien, with whom in name also he bears a resemblance. He was "the center of the Etruscan god-world, the power who speaks in the thunder and descends in the lightning." To this bright god a temple was *Eawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient World, pp. 160, 161. RELIGION OF THE ETRUSCANS. 117 dedicated in every city, and one of the gates of each city bore his name. An Etruscan family name and the name of a streamlet were derived from this god. He sometimes received the title Summanus, "the supreme god.' M Cupra was a heavenly goddess to whom a temple and a gate were dedicated in every Etrus- can city. She has been identified with Hera and Juno.f The name has been compared with the Cybele of Phrygia. Cupra "expresses the character of Juno, as presiding over contracts and obligations of every description involving good faith among mankind, and especially that of marriage. "J Thalna, or Thana, is thought to be the same goddess. If she be but a mere variant of Tina, she may be the reflex of the sky-god. Possibly she may be regarded as the personification of light or day. She is represented on Etruscan mirrors as assisting at the birth of certain divin- ities, or as an attendant of Latona. She has "a coronet, earrings, necklace, and tunic, a fillet or twig in her hand, and a green branch before her * Taylor, Etruscan Researches, p. 132; Rawlinson, The Re- ligions of the Ancient World, pp. 161, 162; Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, Vol. II, p. 444. t Strabo, Vol. I, p. 357. t Crawford and Balcarras, Etruscan Inscriptions, p. 251. 11 118 DEPARTED GODS. face. ... On a mirror from Vulci, Thalna ap- pears as a male god, half nude, with a coronet and staff." The name is found in composition in Thankvilus or Tanaquil. Altria, who may be compared with the Greek Graces, was represented as a nude and beautiful woman, with a crown and necklace, and gener- ally in company with Thalna and Euturpa.* Menrva had her own temple and gate in each Etruscan city. The name is of very frequent occurrence on works of art. We can, however, gather very little information whereby to judge of her character. According to Taylor, Menrva denotes the " red heaven," or " the dawn," and the two Menrvas, which occasionally appear on the same mirror, denote the morning and the even- ing twilight.-j- She is represented armed, with the gis on her breast, and sometimes with wings. On one mirror she is vanquishing the giant Akrathe. "The goddess, who is armed with helmet, aegis, and spear, has just cut or broken off, it is not clear which, the giant's right arm close to the shoulder ; and, grasping it by the wrist, she brandishes it over his head, ac- companying the action with a sardonic grin at her foe, who, sinking to his knees, looks up at * Cooper, Archaic Dictionary, pp. 31, 567. t Taylor, Etruscan Researches, pp. 137, 138. RELIGION OF THE ETR I >< I AX 119 her with an expression rather of astonishment at her cleverness than of pain or terror." * Usil, the sun, has been identified with Apollo, and was represented by the native artists as n youth with bow and arrows. According to Festus, ansel was a Sabine word, meaning " the sun," and according to Hesychius the Etruscan word ansel meant " the dawn." The name is found on a bronze mirror from Vulci, in con- nection with Thesan and Nethuns. Usil wore laced sandals, and was crowned with the rays of the sun. Losna, the moon, was represented nearly as the Roman Diana. The crescent was her em- blem, and her figure is found on a mirror from Prameste. She may be Luna in the character of Lucina.f We leave the heavenly deities, and come to the consideration of those whose realm was the x earth. Sethlans the Greek Hephaestus and the Roman Vulcan was the god of fire. Nethuns, who may be considered the Neptune of the clas- sics, was represented wearing a crown and car- rying a trident. Phuphlans, the god of the earth and its products, may be compared with * Dennis, Cities :mrl(l, p. 220. 156 DEPARTED OODS. jwinted for these services, was called " the day of blood." These gloomy features in her wor- ship may have been modifications from Asiatic influence. Vesta was a most ancient divinity, and was the goddess of the hearth, especially the national hearth. She had a temple on Palatine Hill, and TEMPLE OF VESTA. (As at Present.) in the immediate vicinity was her sacred grove. Six Vestal Virgins, under the control of the Pontifices, kept the sacred fire ever burning on her altar. They purified the shrine every morn- ing with water brought from the Egerian Spring, and at stated times presented offerings to the goddess. At the festival held in her honor on RUINS OF THK TEMPLE OF SATURN AT ROME. 157 14 158 DEPARTED GODS the ninth of June, Roman matrons with bare feet resorted to her temple. The eternal fire burning in her temple was her only and sufficient symbol. Ceres was the goddess of agriculture, and was early connected with Liber, the god of the vine- yard. Cerus and Cerie were a god and goddess worshiped by the early Italians, and may be con- nected with Ceres. Her worship was merged in that of the Greek Demeter. Saturnus, and his wife Ops, are among the oldest deities of Italy. An altar erected to Sat- urnus, at the foot of the Capitoline, is said to have preceded the foundation of Rome. Under or be- hind his temple was the Roman treasury, in which were preserved the archives and treasures of the State. The oldest form of national verse was called the Saturnian. He is the god of ag- riculture, and his hollow statue, filled with olive- oil, speaks of fertility and abundance. His sym- bol is a sickle, which he bears in his hand. His feet were bound with wool. His festival, the Saturnalia, lasted from the seventeenth to the twenty-fourth of December. " The woolen fet- ters were taken from the feet of the image of Saturn, and each man offered a pig. During the festival, schools were closed; no war was declared or battle fought; no punishment was inflicted. In place of the toga, an undress garment wa's worn. THE GREAT GODS. 159 Distinctions of rank were laid aside; slaves sat at table with their masters or were actually waited on by them, and the utmost freedom of speech was allowed them. Gambling with dice, at other times illegal, was now permitted and practiced. All classes exchanged gifts, the commonest being wax tapers and clay dolls. These dolls were es- pecially given to children, and the makers of them held a regular fair at this time. Varro thought that these dolls represented original sacrifices of human beings to the infernal gods." In later times Saturnus was identified with Cronos. Ops was the goddess of labor, and hence of plenty and wealth " opulence." She w r as gen- erally worshiped in connection with Saturnus, but had also her separate sanctuary on the Cap- itoline. " Ops, like Ceres, is sometimes confounded with Tellus, but the three goddesses w r ere to the Latin mind distinct, Tellus being a personation of the earth itself, Ceres of the productive power of nature, which brings forth fruits out of the earth, and Ops of the human labor without which the productive power runs to waste, and is insufficient for the sustenance of life." :i: Hercules was a native Italian god though the name bears resemblance to the Greek Heracles with whom he was early identified. He was the *Kawliusnii,Tlu-l{cli-iuns.il the Ancient World, pp. 22:'-. l'L'4. 160 DEPARTED GODS. % god of the gains which come from adventure, and of any extraordinary increase of wealth. At his most holy altar in the cattle market the gen- eral was wont to present to him the tenth of the spoil, and the merchant the tenth of his increase. He became the god of mercantile covenants, gen- erally, which in early times were frequently con- firmed at his altar by oath. Hence he was the Deus Fidius, " the god of good faith." " The wor- ship of Hercules was from an early date among the most widely diffused ; he was, to use the words of an ancient author, adored in every ham- let of Italy, and altars were everywhere erected to him in the streets of the cities and along the country roads." ' Mercurius was the god of barter, trade, and all commercial transactions. There was no trade at Rome till Italy felt the influence of the Greek colonies. All the usages and religious ceremonies connected with trade were borrowed from the Greeks. Mercurius was not officially recognized till the year B. C. 495, when also the Greek god Hermes was introduced into Rome under his name. It was probably at this time that a regular college of merchants was instituted under the protection of this god. On the Ides of May the mercuriales celebrated a festival in honor of their patron, with *Momm8en, History of Rome, Vol. I, p. 241. THE GREAT CODS. 161 whom, under Greek influence, Mai a, the mother of Hermes, was associated. Mercury became the god, not only of the mercatores and of the corn-trade, but of buying and selling in general ; and it appears that, at least in the streets where shops were common, little chapels and images of the god were erected. There was a spring dedicated to Mercury between his temple and the Porta Capena. Every shopman drew water from this spring on the Ides of May, and sprinkled it with a laurel twig over his head and over his goods, at the same time entreating Mercury to remove from his head and his goods the guilt of all his deceits. The art of the Ro- man tradesman was evidently like that of an Oriental tradesman of modern times, and the word mercurialis was probably used as equivalent to 'cheat.'" The position of Mercurius among the Roman gods was a low one, and his influence in the nation was not great. Neptunus has been identified with the Etruscan water-god Nethuns. The earliest reference to his worship is on the occasion of the first lectisternium held in B. C. 399, when the Sibylline Books in- cluded him among the gods to whom this festival was dedicated. His cult was fully established in the second century of the Republic, when it was united to that of Mercurius. The Neptunalia was 162 DEPARTED GODS. celebrated on the twenty-third day of July with games, banquets, and carousals. In earlier times the god Portunus was thanked for naval victories. Several Roman admirals are known to have sac- rificed to Neptune. The god became completely identified with the Greek Poseidon. II. PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. r r^HE divinities named in the previous chapter L may be called the twelve great gods. There are still other native deities worthy of mention. Silvanus was an old god of the woods and fields, and of the cattle. The Pelasgians dedi- cated a grove to him near C;ere. Pigs were sac- rificed to him, and he received offerings of milk at the harvest festivals. He is also represented as the god of boundaries, and on votive tablets as the god of planting and gardening. Virgil crowns him with fennel and lilies, and makes him carry in his hand an uprooted cypress. "On a relief he appears with a crown of pine-branches in his hair, a pine-branch in his left hand, a skin filled with fruits hanging about his neck, a prun- ing-knife in his right hand, and a dog by his side." He was closely connected with rural life. Pomona was the goddess of orchards, loved by silvan deities, but wooed and won by Ver- turnnus, the god of the turning year. She had a special priest, and there was a grove sacred to her about twelve miles from Rome. 163 164 DEPARTED GODS. Flora was the goddess of spring-time and flowers. A festival of great gayety was held in her honor from the twenty-eighth day of April to the third of May. She had a temple near the Circus Maximus, and a Flamen Floralis was at- tached to her worship. She says of herself: " I enjoy perpetual spring. To me the year is always most beauteous; the tree always bears its foliage, the earth its herbage. A fruitful gar- den in the fields of my dowry is mine. The breeze cherishes it; it is irrigated by a spring of trickling water. This my husband has filled with flowers of the choicest kinds ; and he says, ' Do thou, Goddess, rule the empire of the flow- ers.' Ofttimes have I desired to reckon the tints as they were arranged, and I could not. Their multitude exceeded all number. When first the dewy rime has been dashed from the leaves, and the variegated flowers warm in the beams of the sun, the Seasons, arrayed in painted robes, assem- ble, and gather my presents into their light bas- kets. Forthwith to them are added the Graces, and they plait the chaplets, and the garlands destined to bind their heavenly locks. I was the first to spread the new seed throughout the unlimited natures. Before then, the earth was of but one tint."* *Ovid, The Fasti, Riley's Translation, Vol. I, pp. 186, 187. PRIESTS AND FESTIVAL*. 165 Faunus presided over flocks and herds. The Faunalia, in honor of Faunus and Fauna, was celebrated annually in December. Janus was the god of the sun. He was rep- resented with a face in the front, and another on the back of his head. The month of January was sacred to him, as also all other beginnings. He had a temple in the Forum, with two doors op- posite to each other, which, in time of war, stood open, and in time of peace were shut. The temple was thrice closed on this ac- count once during the reign of Numa, again after the first Punic war, and a third time after the battle of Actium, when Caesar JANUS. Augustus became sole ruler of the empire. Several deities belonged peculiarly to the home and State. Such were Terminus, the god of boundaries ; Consus, the god of secret counsel; and the Penates, the gods of property. The Penates presided over the kitchen and the store- room. None but pure and chaste persons were permitted to enter the store-room. The images of the Penates, two in number, represented as 15 166 DEPARTED GODS. dancing and holding aloft a drinking-horn in token of joy and plenty, were placed on the family hearth. The old Roman, in company with his family, offered a morning sacrifice and prayer to the household gods. " Before meals the blessing of the gods was asked, and after the meal, but before dessert, there was a short silence, and a portion of food was placed on the hearth and burned. If the hearth and the im- ages were not in the eating-room, either the im- ages were brought and put on the table, or before the shrine was placed a table, on which were set a salt-cellar, food, and a burning lamp." The Kalends, the Nones, and the Ides, the Caristia held on the twenty-second of February, and the Saturnalia, were set apart for special family wor- ship. On these and other joyous days the im- ages were crowned, and there were presented offerings of cakes, honey, wine, incense, and sometimes a pig. Not only had each family its Penates, but also each clan ; and the State had its public Penates. These household gods had a temple of their own in Rome, but were also wor- shiped in the temple of Vesta. Closely con- nected with this worship was that of the Lares, the deified ancestors still living in their graves in the house, and worshiped as the guardians and protectors of the family. On the hearth PRIESTS A ND FKS TI I '.4 LS. . 1 0,7 between the Penates was an image of the Lar. When the Lares became spirits of terror, they \vriv called Lemures and Larvae. The Lar fa- miliaris was the head of the family and of the family cultus, while the Lares publici belonged to the State religion. According to Varro, there were two hundred and sixty-five stations for statues of Lares at the corners of the streets of Rome. Many gods of lesser rank were personifica- tions of abstract qualities, and many were dis- tinctively nature gods, while a multitude of others were borrowed from the Greeks. The State established priesthoods for the worship of the principal gods. The highest order in the priesthoods was the Flamines, or " Kindlers," so called because they presented burnt offerings. The great Kindlers of Mars, Quirinus, and Jupiter were taken only from the patrician rank. The highest of all was the Fla- men of Jupiter, who was entitled to a lictor, a seat in the Senate, the curule chair, and the toga prcetexta, woven of thick wool by his wife. The number of Flamines was afterwards enlarged, and Vertumnus, Flora, Pomona, and Vulcan had each his lesser Kindler. There were fifteen Flamines in all, but at a still later period this number was further increased. The Flamen 168 DEPARTED GODS. attended to the whole worship of the temple to which he was devoted. In addition to the Flamen, each temple had a college of priests, which might consist of all the males of a particular priestly family, but was more generally a close corporation, limited in the number of its members. Vacancies in the college were filled by election. There was a col- lege of Salii, or " dancing priests," attached to the temple of Mars, on the Palatine Hill, and another connected with the temple of Quirinus, on the Quirinal. The Luperci celebrated the Lupercalia on the fifteenth of February, when goats and a dog were offered in sacrifice. "After the sacrifice, two of the Luperci were led to the altar ; their foreheads were touched with a bloody sword, and the blood wiped off with wool dipped in milk. Then the ritual required that the two young men shall laugh. The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, and ran in two bands round the walls of the old Palatine city, striking people who crowded near. These thongs were called Februa, hence the name of the month February." The rite was originally peculiar to the tribe of the Ramses, and was dedicated to Inuus, an old Italian deity. PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. 169 "Our Roman forefathers called atoning sacri- fices by the name of 'Februa,' and even now many traces of its meaning confirm this significa- tion .of the expression. The Pontiffs ask wool of the king of the sacrifices and of the Flamen, the name of which, in the ancient dialect, was 'Februa;' and the purifying substances which the lictor takes for the houses when ascertained as Icing impure, the parched spelt with the grain of salt, are called by the same name. This, too, is the name of the bough which, lopped from a consecrated tree, covers with its foliage the holy temples of the priests. I myself have seen the Flaminica asking for the 'Februa;' a bough of pine was presented to her, making this request for the 'Februa' by name. In a word, whatever there is by means of which our breasts are puri- fied, it had with our unshaven ancestors this name. From these circumstances the month de- rives its name, either because the Luperci, with thongs of hide, purify all the country, and con- sider that rite an expiation; or because the sea- son is purified, the shades of the dead being ap- peased when the days devoted to their offerings have passed by. Our ancients believed that puri- fication was efficacious to remove every curse and every cause of evil." ' Ovid, The Fasti, Riley's Translation, Vol. I, pp. 46, 47, 170 DEPARTED GODS. The college of Vestal Virgins, connected with the worship of Vesta, having charge of the sa- cred fire, and the "tokens" of Rome, awaken great interest whenever mentioned. " The House of the Vestals" was discovered by Lanciani in 1883, at the foot of the Palatine Hill. This most brilliant discovery brought to light many pedestals, statues, busts, coins, inscriptions, and other objects of antiquarian interest, and has added much to our knowledge of this religious corporation. The Vestal Virgins, six in number, "clad in snow-white garments, which reflected, as it were, the purity of their minds and souls ; in the very prime of beauty, youth, and strength ; daughters of the noblest families; depositaries of state secrets; confidants of the imperial household, and faithful keepers of the secret tokens of the Roman Commonwealth," were held in reveren- tial honor, enjoyed many privileges, and wielded vast influence. Zosimus, the historian, mentions the fact that, after the Virgins had left their house, bearing doubtless the sacred tokens, Princess Serena entered the building, and took a rich necklace from a statue of the goddess. Rome being be- sieged by Alaric, Serena was suspected of secret connivance with the enemy. She was doubtless STATUE OF A VKSTAI, VIRGIN. 172 DEPARTED GODS. innocent, but was put to death. This was looked upon as a just punishment for her sacrilege. She had entered the most sacred- place of Vesta. " Here she was so captivated by the beauty of a necklace that she took it with her own hands from the shoulders of the goddess, and fixed it on her own neck. An old woman, the last sur- viving Vestal, having witnessed by chance the profanation, cursed the princess, and predicted that, sooner or later, she would sadly expiate her crime. Serena, at first, took no notice of the awful malediction; but the old Vestal had told the truth Serena died by strangulation!"* The college of the Fratres Arvales, twelve in number, and selected from the highest patrician families, were devoted to Ceres, in whose honor as the Dea Dia they celebrated the great annual festival, and offered public sacrifices for the fer- tility of the fields. The new grain was blessed on each of the three days of the festival. On the second day the ceremonies were performed in a grove, when two pigs, a white cow, and a fat sheep were sacrificed. The grove where they assembled was "at the fifth milestone of the Via Campana, on the slope of the hills which now overlook the farm of La Magliana." This Lanciani, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discover- ies, pp. 133, 135, 176, 177. PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. 173 slope was excavated in 1868 and 1869, and richly rewarded the explorer. "The very temple of the Dea Dia was dis- covered a round, marble structure, raised on a very high platform, on the vertical surface of which the annals, or yearly records, of the fra- ternity were engraved. To speak of the impor- tance of these annals which begin with the reign of Augustus and stop with that of Gordi- anus II, a lapse of two centuries and a half, and which contain an almost incredible amount of archaeological, historical, and chronological in- formation would not be consistent with the spirit of this chapter. I must notice, however, one particular, which is evidently a recollection of the age of bronze. The annals of each year were engraved on the marble basement of the temple during the month of April, and were en- graved, of course, with iron or steel tools. To expiate this profanation, in the same month of each year, sacrifices were offered, ob ferri inla- tioncm et elationem, for the introduction and re- moval of iron within the sacred precinct a sow and a sheep were slain over the altar, and .their flesh was eaten afterwards by attendants and sacristans of an inferior order." * l.-inciani, Audi-lit Koine in the Light of Recent Discov- eries, pp. 42, 43. 174 DEPARTED GODS. The duties of the Sodales Titii were quite similar. The thirty Flamines Curiales offered sacrifices for the preservation of the Curies of the old Roman people. Every worshiper might address personally any deity with whom he wished to communicate. But to hold converse with a god was not, after all, an easy matter. Only those familiarly ac- quainted with a god could understand aright his language. The priest was educated to interpret the divine. He could not only understand, but also influence the will of the god, and even over- reach him for the good of man. Hence the importance of the priest in religious worship is most evident. Still more important were those men specially skilled in all kinds of religious learning. These wise men formed the colleges of sacred lore. The Roman priests, like the priests of the Greek, and in fact all other ancient religions, were compassed about by a great multitude of restric- tions and observances to which they were com- pelled to give most earnest heed. The Flamen Dialis was not permitted to touch a dead body or to enter a house where one was burned. He must not see any work done on holy days, nor might he venture to uncover in the open air. If a man were brought into his house in bonds, the PRIKSTS AM> FESTIVALS. 175 bonds were removed, and drawn up through a hole in the roof and thence let down into the street. His hair could be cut only by a free man, and with a bronze knife, and his hair and nails when cut must be buried under a lucky tree. The feet of his bed were daubed with mud. He ROMAN PRIE.ST AND PRIESTESS. might not touch wheaten flour or leavened bread. He was permitted neither to touch nor name a goat, a dog, raw meat, beans, or ivy. None but sacred fire could be carried out of his house. He must not ride a horse, or even touch one, and no knot must be found on any part of his garments. He must not wear a broken ring. His wife was compelled to observe nearly 176 DEPARTED GODS. the same rules, besides others which were peculiar to herself." ' " The priesthoods were charged with the wor- ship of a specific divinity ; the skilled colleges, on the other hand, were charged with the pres- ervation of traditional rules regarding those more general religious observances, the proper fulfill- ment of which implied a certain amount of in- formation, and rendered it necessary that the State, in its own interest, should provide for the faithful transmission of that information. These close corporations supplying their own vacancies, of course, from the ranks of the burgesses, became in this way the depositaries of skilled arts and sciences." f The Pontifices, under the Pontifex Maximus, who was the highest religious authority in the State, exercised control over all the priests, and performed the general functions of the State re- ligion. It is probable that there was no supreme Pontifex under the emperors, but that the func- tions of the sacred office were discharged by the emperors in person. The rex sacrorum, under the Republic, succeeded to the sacrificial duties which had been performed by the king, but the Pontifex *Frazer, The Golden Bough, Vol. I, pp. 117, 118; cf. the ref- erences fjiven in this work. t Moiurnsen, History of Kome, Vol. I, p. 229. PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. 177 Maximus inherited the substance of power in sa- cred things. The Pontifices claimed to possess professional " knowledge of things human and di- vinr." The supreme Pontiff dwelt close to the sacred hearth of the State. He appointed the Flamens and the Vestal Virgins, and had charge of their cults and those exercises of public religion for which no priests were specially provided. The Pontifices furnished all technical information and guidance on all great and important religious occasions. They controlled the calendar and kept the pontifical archives or annual chronicles of public events, and to them was assigned the dec- laration of the laws of religion. They taught how to escape the threatenings of omens and prodigies. The Augurs interpreted, according to the books of divination, the will of Jupiter on the oc- casion of every public transaction. At first there seem to have been but two augurs, one from each of the tribes Ramnes and Titles. Numa added two more, and again two for the tribe Lu- ceres. Sulla made the number fifteen, and Caesar added one. The office, like that of the Pon- tifices and Flamines, was for life, and the college filled its own vacancies. The augurs observed the sky, and watched the course of the lightning and the flight of birds. Such observations could be made only in the city of Rome, except by con- 178 DEPARTED GODS. secrating a spot of earth to represent the hearth, of the Eternal City. The notes of birds, and their manner of feeding were not forgotten. Fowls were kept in cages by a servant that the augurs might not be without a ready means of reading the will of heaven. The motions and sounds of quadrupeds and serpents also revealed the will of the gods, though this method of divination was less frequently employed, and had gone out of use at the time of Cicero. Any unusual phe- nomena were considered timely warnings. Au- spices were taken by casting lots, and by exam- ining the entrails of sacrifices. In the latter case Etruscan haruspices were generally employed. The occasions for the consultation of augurs were such as the founding of colonies, the beginning of a battle, the assembling of an army, the sit- tings of the Senate, the decisions of peace and war, the election of magistrates, and their entering on office. "And our ancestors were persuaded that much virtue resides in certain words, and there- fore prefaced their various enterprises with cer- tain auspicious phrases ; such as, ( May good, and prosperous, and happy fortune attend!' They commenced all the public ceremonies of religion with these words, * Keep silence ;' and when they announced any holidays, they commanded that all PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. 179 lawsuits and quarrels should be suspended. Like- wise, when the chief who forms a colony makes a lustration and review of it, or when a general musters an army, or a censor the people, they always choose those who have lucky names to prepare the sacrifices. The consuls in their mil- itary enrollments likewise take care that the first soldier enrolled shall be one with a fortunate name." * Divination by dreams is common to all na- tions. While the body slept, the soul was thought to have been awake and most vigorous. " Since the soul has lived from all eternity, and is engaged with spirits innumerable, it therefore beholds all things in the universe, if it only ob- serves a watchful attitude." The Romans per- haps inherited the doctrine of metempsychosis from the Greeks through Ennius, the poet of Calabria. The Fetiales, twelve in number, were the liv- ing repository to preserve the knowledge of all treaties. They pronounced authoritatively on all matters of law as between nations. They de- cided when a treaty had been broken, demanded satisfaction, and declared war. At the con- clusion of a treaty they offered sacrifices, thus giving to treaty obligations a sacred character. * Cicero, De Divinatione, i, 45. 180 DEPARTED GODS. The Duumviri, two in number as the name suggests, were the keepers of the Sibylline Books, and interpreted their prophecies. These books were especially consulted in cases of pesti- lence, and upon the occurrence of any extraordi- nary prodigies. These various colleges of priests never could become dangerous to the State. Their duties were only to interpret and to advise; never to take the initiative, and never to execute. They could only answer questions. " The Romans, notwithstanding all their zeal for religion, ad- hered with unbending strictness to the principle that the priest ought to remain completely powerless in the State; and, excluded from all command, ought, like any other burgess, to render obedience to the humblest magis- trate." * The Roman religion was business-like, and consisted largely in songs, games, dances, and banquets. The pig was an offering most accept- able to the gods. All extravagance in expense and excess in joy were sternly rebuked. The gods, as well as the Roman people, were taught to practice frugality. These were allowed little play for the imagination, and little room for en- thusiastic fanaticism, unrestrained indulgence, and -Mominsen, History of Koine, Vol. 1, p. 232. PRIESTS AND FESTIVALS. 181 the frenzy of superstition. Sin was considered a crime against the gods, and punishment was the expiation of guilt. The slaying of an enemy in war, and the execution of a criminal, were equally expiatory sacrifices offered to of- fended divinities. When the guilt which stirred the gods to anger could not be fastened upon any particular person or persons, they might still be appeased by one who voluntarily offered him- self as a victim. Thus national calamity could be removed, and disaster in battle turned to victory. There were several usages which may have been reminiscences of ancient human sac- rifices. The thirty puppets, plaited of rushes, and thrown annually into the Tiber, may have been a survival of thirty victims which, in most ancient times, were offered annually at the Lemuralia. In comparison with the religion of the Greeks, the religion of the Romans was commonplace, matter-of-fact, unartistic, bald, barren, dull, tame, stupid, and tasteless; while yet it was most sober, business-like, earnest, and practical. Wor- ship, prayers, sacrifices, and vows seem to have been considered mere commercial obligations, to be punctually met. The old Roman religion 16 182 DEPARTED GODS. had no images of the gods. As no bargain could be made by proxy, so no priest could stand between the worshiper and his gods. These early gods seem to have had no genealo- gies and no family relationships. Foreign and later importations created many changes. The religion was fruitless in art, poetry, and all im- aginative speculation. III. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. AMONG the philosophic schools of the classic nations, that of the Stoics taught the purest morality; and on this account, more than because of its philosophical discussions, it has become one of the most celebrated. This school was founded by Zeno, of Citium, at the close of the fourth century before the commencement of the Christian era. It took its name from the stoa, or painted corridor, on the north side of the market-place at Athens, where its founder discoursed with his dis- ciples. Our chief source of information concerning the early Stoics and their teachings must always be the work of Diogenes Laertius. His "Lives of the Philosophers" is invaluable, though evi- dently many times the author understood the subject but imperfectly. In his account of the Stoics, he does not always distinguish what be- longs to Zeno, what to his immediate disciples, and what to later teachers. We can not, how- ever, be far out of the way in regard to the main principles and teachings of the school as expounded by the great master. We present 183 184 DEPARTED GODS. some of the features which characterize the school. The wise man, says the Stoic, lives according to nature; by which is meant not only universal nature, but also his own nature as a part of universal nature. This comes to the same thing as saying that he lives according to virtue, and according to the will of the Universal Governor and Ruler of all things. He does nothing which the common law of mankind or right reason con- demns. In this consists his chief good or highest happiness. The beautiful is the only good. "Beauty is the flower of virtue." There is nothing inter- mediate between vice and virtue. He who has one virtue has all virtues. All goods are equal, and each good is to be desired in the highest degree. Nothing is good which it is possible to use ill. Anything has value only as it helps man to live according to nature. The wise man is not disturbed by grief. This dismisses all pity, emulation, and jealousy, all pain, perturbation, and sorrow, and all anguish and confusion. He is not moved by fear. This banishes all apprehension, shame, and hesitation, and all per- plexity, trepidation, and anxiety. He neither feels nor seeks pleasure. This THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 185 destroys all possibility of enjoyment, rejoic- ing at evil, irrational delight, and extrava- gant joy. The wise man is free from vanity, and yet austere. He is not moved by clemency ; he would make a severe punisher of crime. As to his emotional nature, the wise man is barely saved from becoming a gate-post by hav- ing assigned him three good dispositions. These are joy as opposed to pleasure, caution as op- posed to fear, and will as opposed to desire. These are called rational dispositions. The first brings delight, mirth, and good spirits; the sec- ond, reverence and modesty; and the third, good-will, placidity, salutation, and affection. We follow in the above one of the classifica- tions brought forward in the school. The wise man is godlike. He has something within him " which is as it were a god." He is pious, and pays proper reverence to the gods; he worships the gods and sacrifices to them ; in fact, he is the only true priest, as he is also the only true king. He is just and holy, and keeps himself pure. The gods themselves can not withhold their admiration. He is the only free man, and the only man fit to become a magis- trate, judge, or orator. Everything belongs to the wise man, and he is never in error. True 186 DEPARTED GODS. friendship can exist only in the heart of the vir- tuous man. All errors are equal. " For if one thing that is true is not more true than another thing that is true, neither is one thing that is false more false than another thing that is false ; so, too, one deceit is not greater than another, nor one sin than another. For the man who is a hun- dred furlongs from Cauopus and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus; and so, too, he who commits a greater sin and he who commits a less are both equally not in the right path." * The Stoics professed belief in one supreme god, and yet did not break away from the poly- theism of their fathers. Their one god, however, was the god of pantheism, and so remained to the last. They never emancipated themselves from superstition, and resorted to divination. We need not name the many philosophers who helped make the school illustrious. As in the case of Zeno, their teachings come only to us second-hand. Stoicism was never really at home in Greece. Its greatest expounders were foreigners. But its adopted country was most congenial. In Rome it especially flourished. We may study * Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, pp. 301-317. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 187 the moral system of Panrctius, of the middle school, in the first two books of the De Officiis of Cicero, which are largely taken from his lost work. But, omitting all other names, we will content ourselves with a brief study of the three great Stoics of Rome. Lucius Annieus Seneca was a native of Cor- el uba, in Hispania, and was born about seven years before the commencement of the Christian era. His father, Marcus Annrcus Seneca was a Roman knight, a professional rhetorician, and an intelligent man of the world, with a sincere con- tempt for philosophy. His mother, Helvia, was of a noble nature, strong in intellect, untarnished in virtue, and of remarkable sweetness of char- acter. His brother, Marcus Annseus Novatus, was known in history as Junius Gallic, having been adopted by his father's friend of that name. He is the Gallio of Acts, who "cared for none of these things." (Acts xviii, 17.) Seneca became a powerful advocate and the most illustrious literary character of his age. He acquired an enormous fortune, but thereby suffered in his influence as a Stoic philosopher. Indeed he could not well be a consistent philos- opher and at the same time a man of the world. He took public office, which he adorned by his wisdom and intellectual gifts. But he could not 188 DEPARTED GODS. stem the tide of corruption and wickedness, and, upon suspicion, was banished to Corsica by the Emperor Claudius. His philosophy failed to sus- tain him in his exile ; for, while he gave himself to authorship, his works were not free from the most sycophantic and fulsome flattery of Clau- dius, whom in his heart he must have considered a monster. Agrippina, a demoness incarnate, a tigress gorged with human blood, secured the recall of Seneca ; and when her son, the if possible more satanic Nero, ascended the throne of Rome, the philosopher became his tutor. He may have de- spaired of maintaining his influence over his royal master if he were to attempt to teach him the highest virtue, and hence was content to enforce the virtue of mere expediency. His own virtue suffered. He became an accomplice in crime, and must be even branded as a murderer. Nero came to the conclusion that he could do without him, and, suspecting him of being connected with the conspiracy of Piso, condemned him to death. He opened his own veins, and thus died sur- rounded by his friends. The age in which Seneca lived was character- ized by the purest moral teaching, and yet ex- plored the lowest depths of degradation and in- famy. While many did not believe in the old THE MORALITY OF \7Y>/7,SW. 189 gods at all, they yet gave themselves up to su- perstition, and put their trust in the fooleries of sorcerers, astrologers, exorcists, and every im- postor and quack. Gibbon says : " The common worship was regarded by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally useful." Religion became a pretense and a mockery. Never were luxury and extravngance carried to a higher pitch. Men abandoned manly pur- suits, and resorted to debauchery and gluttony. They invented and diligently practiced every refinement of vice. They sought the arena, in which gladiators and beasts tore one another in pieces, and their constant demand was for more blood. Slaves were treated with the greatest cruelty and brutality. They were tortured, they were murdered sometimes for mere pleasure. The great multitude were ground by poverty, with the hope of nothing better, while the wealthy despoiled whole provinces to satisfy their tables. This wild extravagance, this un- speakable cruelty, this frantic wickedness, this revelry in crimes beyond nature and below na- ture, all was but an attempt to feed on husks a soul created for the ambrosia and nectar of the gods. It is not a matter for wonder that many sought refuge in suicide. 17 190 DEPARTED GODS. Seneca recommended suicide as the way of escape from worldly troubles : " I have placed every good thing within your own breasts. It is your good fortune not to need any good for- tune. ' Yet many things befall you which are sad, dreadful, hard to be borne.' Well, as I have not been able to remove them from your path, I have given your minds strength to combat all. Bear them bravely. In this you can surpass God himself. He is beyond suffering evil; you are above it. Despise poverty; no man lives as poor as he was born. Despise pain ; either it will cease or you will cease. Despise death ; it either ends you or takes you elsewhere. Despise for- tune ; I have given her no weapon that can reach the mind. Above all, I have taken care that no man should hold you captive against your will. The way of escape lies open before you ; if you do not choose to fight, you may fly."* In such words God is represented as address- ing men. Petronius, who was an arbiter of ques- tions of taste at the court of Nero, having been implicated in the Pisonian conspiracy, determined to destroy himself. His veins were opened, and while his life-blood was flowing, ludicrous poems were read to him to excite his laughter. When something especially laughable was read, he had Seneca, Minor Dialogues, i, 6. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 191 his veins tied up for a short time that he might fully enjoy it. Pliny counts death the greatest hlessing which nature has bestowed upon man, and says that " the very best feature in connec- tion with it is, that every person has it in his own power to procure it for himself." * There are those who complain because they are bound to this body, and are compelled to care for it, and guard it from danger. They would fain be released. To all such, Epictetus says : " Wait for God ; when he shall give the signal ami release you from this service, then go to him ; but for the present endure to dwell in the place where he has put you. . . . Do not depart without a reason." Again, the philoso- pher says : " In sum, remember this ; the door is open; be not more timid than little children, but as they say, when the thing does not please them, ' I will play no longer,' so do you, when things seem to you of such a kind, say, I will no longer play, and be gone, but if you stay, do not complain .'"f Marcus Aurelius Antoninus advises if a man is not pleased with his surroundings, then "get away out of life." He approves the pro- * Pliny, Natural History, xxviii, 3; cf. ii, 5; vii, 53, 54. tEpictetua, i, 1 J, 24 ; cf. Horace, Kpp, ii, 2, 213. 192 DEPARTED OODS. verbial resolution : " The house is smoky, and I quit it." * Seneca speaks still more plainly. To him who complains of oppression, he says : " Madman, why do you groan? for what are you waiting? for some enemy to avenge you by the destruc- tion of your entire nation, or for some powerful king to arrive from a distant land ? Wherever you turn your eyes you may see an end to your woes. Do you see that precipice ? down that lies the road to liberty. Do you see that sea? that river ? that well ? Liberty sits at the bottom of them. Do you see that tree ? Stunted, blighted, dried up though it be, yet liberty hangs from its branches. Do you see your own throat, your own neck, your own heart? They are so many ways of escape from slavery. Are these modes which I point out too laborious, and needing much strength and courage ? Do you ask what path leads to liberty? I answer, any vein in your body."f The Stoics believed in the gods, and taught that they should be reverenced. The gods act under no restraint, but their own will is their sufficient law. They have established an order which they will never change because they will * Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, v, 29. t Seneca, Minor Dialogues, v, 15. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 193 never regret their original decision. Their own force holds them to their purpose, so that they will never stop short or desert to the other side. It is from no weakness that they persevere, but they choose to continue in the best course. Not only did they have regard for man in the orig- inal arrangement of the universe ; but they also assist man of set purpose, and hence lay him under obligation. They may have higher aims than the preservation of the human race, yet from the beginning their thought has been di- rected to our comfort, and the scheme of the world has been arranged in a fashion to prove that our interests were neither their least nor last con- cern. The immortal gods have always held us most dear, and have bestowed upon us the great- est possible honor, a place nearest to themselves. The gods send affliction for our good. In the army the most hazardous services are assigned to the bravest soldiers. We see men who are good and acceptable to the gods, toiling, sweat- ing, and painfully struggling upwards, while bad men run riot and are steeped in pleasures. Let us reflect that modesty pleases us in our sons, but forwardness in our slaves ; the former are held in check while the boldness of the latter is encouraged. God acts in like manner. " He does not pet the good man ; he tries him, hardens 194 DEPARTED GODS. him, and fits him for himself." The government of the world is a monarchy ; " our liberty is to obey God." We owe to the gods a debt of gratitude which we should not neglect to pay. " Avaricious as you are, it is easy for you to give them thanks, without expense ; lazy, though you be. you can do it without labor." * The soul of man has been placed beyond the reach of all possible harm. We shall feel our sorrows, if we be human ; we shall bear them, if we be not unmanly. This trumpery body, the prison and fetter of the spirit, may be tossed about; " upon it tortures, robberies, and diseases may work their will; but the spirit itself is holy and eternal, and upon it no one can lay hands." All that is best for man's enjoyment this world, the greatest and most beautiful of the produc- tions of God, and the mind which can behold and admire it are our own property and will not de- sert us as long as we ourselves endure. The treas- ures of this world which we so carefully guard and are ready to defend at the risk of our lives- treasures for which our fleets dye the seas with blood, and our armies shake the walls of cities ; for which we so often violate all ties of relation- * Seneca, De Beneficiis, vi, 23; ii, 30; Minor Dialogues, i, 1, 4; vii, 15. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. l'.i:> ship and friendship are not ours, but are " a kind of deposit, which is on the point of passing into other hands." Our souls are our own ; they can not be harmed. We may keep them pure. What care we for meaner things? You may take riches from the wise man ; you leave him all that is truly his ; he is happy in the present, he does not fear for the future. He can maintain his vir- tue. The path of virtue is closed to none, but open to all ; it invites all, freemen or slaves, kings or exiles ; it requires no qualifications of family or property ; " it is satisfied with a mere man." " Even though you be hard pressed, and vio- lently attacked by the enemy, still it is base to give way ; hold the post assigned to you by na- ture. You ask what this post is ? it is that of being a man."* " Fortune lashes and mangles us. Well, let us endure it. It is not cruelty ; it is a struggle, in which the oftener we engage the braver we shall become." f We should practice humanity, and always keep our tempers in spite of losses, wrongs, abuses, and sarcasms, enduring with magnanimity our short-lived troubles. While we worry, death Seneca. Minor Dialogues, xi,8, 11; xii, 17; vii, 26; iii, 18; ii, 19; I>e Fk-ncficiis, vi, 3. t Seneca, Minor Dialogues, i, 4, 196 DEPARTED GODS. comes to our door. If we abandon our minds to anger or any passion, the downward tendency of our vices will carry us off and hurl us into the lowest depths. We should reject the first in- centives to anger, and resist its very begin- nings. It is hard to hold anger in check when it has once begun, because then reason goes for nothing. Passion will do as much as it chooses, not merely as much as we would allow. Fabianus says: "We ought to fight against the passions by main force, not by skirmishing, and upset their line of battle by a home charge, not by inflicting trifling wounds. I do not ap- prove of dallying with sophisms ; they must be crushed, not merely scratched." * Life is not a good thing, but to live well. Keep a good conscience. It is of value on the rack or in the fire. A heart filled with a good conscience will rejoice in the fire, which will only make it shine more brightly before the world. Men should free themselves from all hin- drances to good living. Riches, pleasures, busi- ness should be counted nothing when compared with a virtuous life. Men have abandoned all, and yet have not learned how to live, still less to live as wise men. Length of life is not the greatest blessing. * Seneca, Minor Dialogues, v, 43 ; iii, 7, 8 ; x, 10, THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 197 The delay of death will make life longer, not pleasanter. A man should never consider the cost of being virtuous. She never allures by gain nor deters by loss. She never bribes any one by hopes and promises. "We must go to her, trampling what is merely useful under our feet. Whithersoever she may call us or send us we must go, without any regard for our private fortunes, sometimes without sparing even our own blood, nor must we ever refuse to obey any of her commands."* Pleasure is changeable and unreliable. It dies at the very moment when it charms us most. On the other hand, the highest good is immortal. It knows no ending ; it does not admit of either satiety or regret. Whatever we can hold in our hands or see with our eyes is transitory, but a kindness lasts after that by means of which it is bestowed is gone. We may make worldly goods really our own only by giving them away. We should give in the way in which we ourselves would like to receive. f If any one gave you a few acres of land, or filled your chest with money, or presented you * Seneca, Miuor Dialogues, iii, 33 ; iv, 21 ; x, 7 ; De Beneficiis, v, 17; iv, 1. t Seneca, Miuor Dialogues, vii, 7; ii, 1 ; De Beneficiis, i, 5. 198 DEPARTED OODS. with a house bright with marble, and its roof beautifully painted with colors and gilding, you would call these benefits. But God has given you the boundless extent of the earth, in which he has buried countless mines, and on which he has placed countless rivers rolling sands of gold. He has concealed in every place masses of silver and all kinds of metals, and has enabled you to discover the hidden treasures. He has built for you a great mansion, in which you see vast blocks of most precious stone, the paltriest frag- ment of which you admire, and he has covered it with a roof which glitters by day and by night; and yet you do not recognize these blessings of God.* Present time is short, always in motion, and runs swiftly away. Man can not grasp it; its unceasing movements brook no delay. Duties should be done now. Postponement is the great- est waste of life. It steals our time day after day. It takes away the present by promising something hereafter. "There is no such obstacle to true living as waiting, which loses to-day while it is depending on the morrow. "f Fate decides everything, public and private. The length of every man's life is decided at his * Seneca, De Beneficiis, iv, 5. t Seneca, Minor Dialogues, x, 9, 10. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 199 birth. It has long since been settled at what we should rejoice and at what weep. We must patiently endure the decisions of the fates. God gave laws to the fates, yet is guided by them, and always obeys. " He only once commanded." Our philosopher, however, reconciles all this with the existence and exercise of free-will. He says : Who can be so crazy as to refuse the name of free-will to that which has no danger of ceasing to act, and of adopting the opposite course, since, on the contrary, he whose will is fixed forever must be thought to wish more earnestly than any one else. Surely, if he who may at any moment change his mind can be said to wish, we must not deny the existence of will in a being whose nature admits of change of mind."* Seneca generally takes a bright view of the future, and counsels against mourning for the dead. The soul is let out of prison and is free. The dead have reached deep and everlasting peace beyond the fear of want, beyond anxiety and envy. Their chaste ears are not wounded by ribaldry ; they are menaced by no disaster. They are complete, having left no part of them- selves behind. They may have tarried for a brief space above us, in order to be cleansed and purified from the vices and rust which all mortal * Sentry, Minor Dialogues, i, 5 ; Do Beneficiis, vi, 21. 200 DEPARTED GODS. lives must contract; but from thence they rise to the high heavens and join the souls of the blest, welcomed by a saintly company. " Free to roam through the open, boundless realms of the everlasting universe, they are not hindered in their course by intervening seas, lofty mount- ains, impassable valleys, or the treacherous flats of the Syrtes. They find a level path every- where, are swift and ready of motion, and are permeated, in their turn, by the stars, and dwell together with them."* In the writings of Seneca may be found nu- merous and striking resemblances to the sacred Scriptures. We can not find, however, that either borrowed from the other. There is not the slightest possibility that Seneca ever had any intercourse with Paul. Several authors have made large collections of passages which show that Seneca, as far as his moral doctrines and precepts are concerned, was not far from the kingdom of heaven. Farrar has presented some of the most striking of these passages, from which we select a few examples. f "Do you wonder that man goes to the gods? God comes to men; nay, what is yet nearer, he * Seneca, Minor Dialogues, xii, 9 ; vi, 19, 25. t Farrar, Seekers after God, pp. 174-180. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 201 comes into men. No good mind is holy without God." "What advantage is it that anything is hid- den from men? Nothing is closed to God; he is present to our minds, and enters into our cen- tral thoughts." "Words must be sown like seed; which, although it be small, when it hath found a suit- able ground, unfolds its strength, and from very small size is expanded into the largest increase." "We shall be wise if we desire but little; if each man takes count of himself, and at the same time measures his own body, he will know how little it can contain, and for how short a time." "You must live for one another, if you wish to live for yourself." "Do we teach that he should stretch his hand to the shipwrecked, show his path to the wanderer, divide his bread with the hungry ? . . . When I could briefly deliver to him the formula of human duty ; all this that you see, in which things divine and human are included, is one we are members of one great body." ' When we consider the age in which Seneca * Seneca, Letters 73, 83, 38, 114, 48, 95; cf. 1 Cor. iii, 16; Heb. iv, 13; Matt, xiii, 8; 1 Tim. vi, 8; Lev. xix, 18; 1 Cor. xii, 27; Rom. xii, 5. 202 DEPARTED GODS. lived, we must place a high estimate upon the strength and purity of his character. We would not conceal or minify his faults, but we would acknowledge with gratitude his virtues. God certainly endowed him with a large share of di- vine illumination. Among the slaves of Epaphroditus, the sec- retary of the Emperor Nero, Seneca must have noticed a little lame Phrygian lad, Epictetus by name, who was destined to become the most celebrated of the Stoic philosophers. He was born about the fiftieth year of the Christian era. We have little information concerning his life which we may count as historic. He was doubtless treated with great cruelty, yet, for the pleasure of his master, was trained in the Stoic philosophy by Caius Musonius Rufus. The de- cree of Domitian, which banished all the philos- ophers from Italy, sent Epictetus to Nicopolis in Epirus. We do not know whether he ever re- turned to Rome. He is said to have died at a good old age, surrounded by many loving dis- ciples. Epictetus exemplified his philosophy in his life, so far at least as we have any knowledge of his history. The good man, the perfect man, the wise man, the Stoic lived in harmony with nature; hence it was important to study and understand na- THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 203 ture. Virtue consisted in cherishing right opin- ions. Some things are not within human con- trol property, health, position, and in fact everything which the great multitude considers desirable. The wise man does not trouble him- self about these things. But his thoughts, his opinions, his feelings, are within his control. Concerning these he exercises his utmost care. Epictetus trusted, with implicit confidence, in the providence of God. God's care would never fail his child. The chief delight of a man should be found in the consciousness that he is obeying God ; not in word only, but in deed and in truth, performing the acts of a wise and good man. The human will should perfectly harmo- nize with the will of God. And in this filial yield- ing to God, there is no compulsion. Man is free to act from original choice. " Dare to look up to God, and say : Deal with me for the future as thou wilt; I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine. I refuse nothing that pleases thee; lead me where thou wilt; clothe me in any dress thou choosest. Is it thy will that I should hold the office of a mag- istrate, that I should be in the condition of a private man, stay here or be in exile, be poor, be rich? I will make thy defense to men in behalf of all these conditions." 204 DEPARTED GODS. " But I have never been hindered in my will, nor compelled when I did not will. And how is this possible? I have placed my movements to- wards action in obedience to God. Is it his will that I should have fever? It is my will also. Is it his will that I should move towards anything? It is my will also. Is it his will that I should obtain anything? It is my wish also. Does he not will? I do not wish. Is it his will that I die is it his will that I be put to the rack? It is my will, then, to die it is my will, then, to be put to the rack. Who, then, is still able to hinder me contrary to my own judgment, or to compel me? No more than he can hinder or compel Zeus."* Here is perfect resignation to the will of God ; here is the adoption of the divine will as his own. It is not possible to conceal from God our acts, or even our intentions and thoughts. Man should learn the nature of the gods; then he should please and obey them, and with all his power im- itate them, and do and say everything consist- ently with this fact.f Men are sprung from God in an especial manner. He is their Maker, their Guardian, and their Father. This should save man from sor- rows and fears, and from mean and ignoble *Epictetus, ii, 16; iv, 1. tEpictettts, ii, 14. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 205 thoughts about himself. He lias also placed by every man a guardian a drcmon, to whom he has committed his care. This guardian never sleeps; this guardian is never deceived. Man is never alone. God and his dtemon are with him, and they need no light to enable them to see what he is doing.* No evil can happen to the man who carries God within. He fears no robber, no earthquake. Everything is full of peace and tranquillity. Every way, every city, every meeting, every neighbor, every companion, is harmless. When he dies, his body is resolved into its original ele- ments ; his spirit goes to God, but whether to be absorbed into the divine essence, or to continue his individual and personal existence, Epictetus does not say.f Epictetus would stand by his principles, even at the risk of his life. " Priscus Helvidius also saw this, and acted conformably. For when Vespasian sent and commanded him not to go into the Senate, he replied : ' It is in your power not to allow me to be a member of the Senate; but so long as I am, I must go in.' 'Well, go in then,' says the emperor, * but say nothing.' 'Do not ask my opinion, and I will be silent.' 'But I must ask your opinion.' 'And I must * Epictetus, i, 3, 9, 14; ii, 8. t Epictetus, iii, 13 18 206 DEPARTED GODS. say what I think right.' ' But if you do, I shall put you to death.' 'When, then, did I tell you that I am immortal? You will do your part, and I will do mine; it is your part to kill; it is mine to die, but not in fear; yours to banish me, mine to depart without sorrow.'"* The philosopher found his supreme happiness in praising God not as a nightingale, not as a swan, but as a rational creature. He says : " I ought to praise God; this is my work. I do it; nor will I desert this post so long as I am al- lowed to keep it. And I exhort you to join in this same song."f A true Stoic was most difficult to find. Epic- tetus says that he never saw one a man who was happy in sickness, in danger, in disgrace, in exile, dying ; a man ready to think as God does, ready to be disappointed, blaming neither God nor man, angry at no one, envying no one, jeal- ous of no one ; " desirous from a man to become a god, and in this poor mortal body thinking of his fellowship with Zeus."J It is agreed on the part of all fair-minded men that Epictetus was one of the choicest spir- its of antiquity. If in Epictetus we behold a man sustained and exalted in soul by his philos- * Epictetus, i, 2. t Epictetus i, 16. t Epictetus ii, 19. THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 207 ophy, and winning for himself abiding happiness and an immortality of fame under the humilia- tions and cruelties of slavery, in Marcus Aure- lius we gaze upon an equally noble spectacle a man almost born to the purple, the greatest ruler of his time, yet humble, gentle, meek, self-forget- ful, conscientious, chastened, and virtuous. His was a pure and lofty soul; in him were serenity, sweetness, docility, and a tenderness almost wo- manly. Never did ancient virtue shine with a milder and softer brilliancy, never was there equal moral delicacy with that displayed in his celebrated "Meditations." When we appreciate the character of the emperor, when we consider the age in which he lived, we shall be prepared to judge charitably of the part he may have taken in the persecution of the Christians. His " Meditations," written as a private diary, and not for the public eye, and hence revealing his innermost heart, has been used as a manual of devotions throughout the Christian Church. He lived as though the breath of eternity were fanning his cheek. He often spoke of the tran- sitory character of all worldly things. He counted the whole world but small and insignif- icant in comparison with the universe. To live in harmony with nature, to trust God and do his will, and to give one's self actively to the cause 208 DEPARTED GODS. of humanity, these he considered the highest du- ties of man. He built but one temple during his whole reign, and that he dedicated to benef- icence. So familiar are his life and works, that we will satisfy ourselves in writing down a few se- lections from his thoughts : " Every moment think steadily as a Roman and a man, to do what thou hast in hand with perfect and simple dignity, and feeling of affec- tion, and freedom, and justice, and to give thy- self relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou dost every act of thy life as if it were thy last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy and self- love and discontent, with the portion which has been given to thee." " Never value anything as profitable to thy- self which shall compel thee to break thy prom- ise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains." " Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good." " What, then, is that about which- we ought THE MORALITY OF STOICISM. 209 to employ our serious pains ? This one thing : thoughts just, and acts social, and words which never lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens as necessary, as usual, as flow- ing from a principle and source of the same kind." "Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul." " But, on the contrary, it is a man's duty to comfort himself, and to wait for the natural dis- solution, and not to be vexed at the delay, but to rest in these principles only : the one that nothing will happen to me which is not conform- able to the nature of the universe, and the other that it is in my power never to act contrary to my God and daemon; for there is no man who will compel me to this." " Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind ; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it, then, with a continuous series of such thoughts as these : for instance, that where a man can live, there he can live well." " Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this : Whatever any one does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color." 210 DEPARTED GODS. " It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kins- men, and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die; and, above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before." "Whatever may happen to thee, it was pre- pared for thee from all eternity." '' No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such." " Neither in writing nor in reading wilt thou be able to lay down rules for others before thou shalt have first learned to obey rules thyself. Much more is this so in life." " Thus, then, with respect to the gods : from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them."* These three greatest of Stoics should have made the age in which they lived illustrious. But their teachings were powerless. They spoke for philosophers, not for the great, seething mass of humanity. They taught an imperfect morality, as they themselves were painfully and sadly con- * Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, ii, 5 ; iii, 7 ; iy, 17, 33, 40 ; v, 10, 16 ; vii, 15, 22 ; x, 5, 16 ; xi, 29 ; xii, 28. THE MORA LITY OF STOK /> M. 211 scious. It was partial, inadequate to rouse the people from their sluggish indifference, powerless to stir the consciences of the wicked, and content to present a rule supported by no underlying principle. It was without authority, without commanding and awakening power, without di- vine sanctions, without inspiring motives, with- out holy comforts, and without well-grounded hopes which reached out into the future. It sounded its appeals, but not with powerful ardor. It could present no faultless example. The ideal Stoic is an impossibility. Epicte- tus declared that he had never seen one. That sublime imperturbability, without desires, without passion, without pity, loftily smiling at all hopes and fears, despising sorrow and mourning, with no tears to shed, proud and haughty, selfishly unselfish, almost angry at the very thought of anger, with affected insensibility, with imaginary wisdom it is not Christian, it is not manly ; a perfect Stoic would be sterile, useless, inhuman. This is not like the Christian, who rejoices with them that do rejoice, and weeps with them that do weep. The Stoic believed in God and also in gods, planetary, stellar, and other. His God was pan- theistic rather than spiritual, and consciously per- sonal and free. Sometimes he seems to have 212 DEPARTED GODS. been the soul of the universe. The Stoic believed in immortality Seneca seems to have looked forward to a personal existence after death. Ep- ictetus avoids questions concerning a future exist- ence ; Marcus Aurelius looks for the dissolution of the body into its elements, and the return of the immaterial part to its original condition. But this is a barren, cold, and comfortless immor- tality. Stoicism found no place for repentance and divine forgiveness. There is no place for the in- dwelling spirit. Indeed there is frequent men- tion of God with man or within man; but God is of such a nature and character that there is but indifferent resemblance to the Christian doctrine. Sometimes it would appear that man is a part of God or equal with God ; nay, is even exalted, in some respects, above God. In every respect, except as to certain moral precepts, Stoicism and Christianity are separated, each from the other, by an infinite distance. IV. SIIjc Rdigtmt af tlje 19 I. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS AND THE CULTURE HERO. study of any religion, even the lowest, J. the most superstitious, and the most bar- barous, should be approached with the most pro- found reverence. No religious rites can be so frivolous and .savage, and no religious beliefs can be so poor and beggarly, as not to be placed in- finitely above ridicule or contempt. The soil upon which the altar of worship has been erected is holy, and we should tread carefully as we visit the sacred place. Here souls cry out after God ; they feel after him if haply they may find him. They may grope in the darkness ; but to an hon- est soul the darkness is not total. There are some few rays of true light. We shall appreciate the religion of Christ the more, the more thoroughly we are acquainted with other religions. We shall feel more sympathy with the heathen, the more carefully we study their thoughts, and mark their honest searchings for the divine. Great mystery is connected with the religion of ancient Britain and Gaul. The deep, dark forest, the sacred oak and mistletoe, the circular and sky-roofed temple, the learned and influential 215 216 DEPARTED GODS priesthood, the sacred rites and symbolism, have excited a curiosity and an interest thus far but poorly gratified. The influence of Druidism is still felt on both continents, in popular tales, tra- ditions and superstitions. Our knowledge of the religious system of the Druids, as far as we are able to gather any in- formation upon the subject at all, must be derived from ancient Celtic mythologies, venerable tradi- tions, primeval institutions, early superstitions and their survivals in modern times, archaeological monuments, and the testimony of classic writers. We shall investigate each of these sources of in- formation, and gather what seems to us most val- uable, We may hope to be able to let in some light to relieve the darkness which, after centu- ries of study, still surrounds the subject. We shall not attempt a chronological order in our studies. After we have tasted the flavor of Celtic mythology we may read with clearer vis- ion the classic and archaeological evidence. There is but little material to assist us in our study of early Celtic mythology, but in its later stages we are rather distracted by its abundance than dis- couraged by its failure. And then, too, this great mass of material has not been digested ; but few scholars having studied it with that thoroughness which the importance of the subject demands. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 217 Omitting many lesser mythologic characters, we shall confine our attention largely to those of the first rank, and select such myths and legends as present them in the clearest light. Perhaps the most fruitful field of all is Ireland, and its literature also may be as ancient. We therefore give this island the leading place in our researches. We may here avail ourselves of the labors of several distinguished Celtic scholars, who, with great enthusiasm and learning, have done much to elucidate a difficult subject. There are many fabulous legends concerning the settlement of Ireland. Among the legends, we find the mention of four successive colonies. These are the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, the Tuatha De Danann, and the Milesians. The Ne- medians were expelled by the Fomorians, a band of sea-rovers, and fled from the island in three bodies. Those who went to Britain became Britons; those who went to Thrace returned as Firbolgs; and those who went to the north of Europe returned as the Tuatha De Danann. The Milesians are said to have come from the north of Spain. The Tuatha De Danann, " the tribes of the goddess Danu," formed the group of divinities believed in by the ancient Goidel. Nuada, who was their king, lost his right arm in one of his conflicts with the savage 218 DEPARTED GODS. Firbolgs and their hideous fillies. This blemish made it necessary for him to abdicate his throne. A clever man of his court made him a silver hand, and another man still more clever, endowed it with life and motion. He now r , after the space of seven years, resumed his kingly office, and was thereafter known as "Nuada of the Silver Hand." He was a most warlike king, but was represented also in other characters. As Nuada Finnfail he was the god of light and of the heav- ens; and as Nuada Necht he was connected with the world of waters. We may compare Nuada in this threefold character with the Greek Zeus, but it must be the primitive Zeus. We call to mind the fact that Zeus also lost his hands both of them and we shall learn the story of the Norse god Tyr. In Welsh we meet with " Lluth of the Silver Hand," who is doubtless the same personage as Nuth. A Welsh name of London is Caer Lu'th, " Lud's Fort;" and the name also lingers in Ludgate Hill, where the god doubtless had an early shrine. In the territory of the ancient Silures we meet with inscriptions bearing the name Nodeus. He seems to have been a kind of Neptune ; and had a temple at Lydney, on the western bank of the Severn. But he was not only the Neptune of the sea, he was also a Mars. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 219 "A small plaque of bronze found on the spot gives us probably a representation of the god himself. The principal figure thereon is a youth- ful deity crowned with rays like Phoebus ; he stands in a chariot drawn by four horses, like the Roman Neptune. On either side the winds are typified by a winged genius floating along, and the rest of the space is left to two Tritons ; while a detached piece, probably of the same bronze, represents another Triton, also a fisherman, who has just succeeded in hooking a salmon."* There are other Celtic gods which combine the characters of Mars and Jupiter. Among these is Cormac mac Airt, grandson of Conn the Hun- dred-fighter, who is regarded to have reigned at Tara in the third century. He exceeded all others in munificence, learning, wisdom, magnif- icence, and military glory. He is said to have been driven from his throne by Fergus the Black-toothed. According to another account, his eye was put out by JEngus of the Poisoned Spear, and this blemish being incompatible with king- ship, he abdicated the throne and rendered valu- able assistance to his son and successor. We must also place here Conaire the Great, who met with a most tragic death, " which is brought about by the fairies of Erinn, through Khyn, Hiblx-rt I..-, tuivs, 1886, p. 127. 220 DEPARTED OODS. the instrumentality of outlaws, coming from the sea and following the lead of a sort of Cyclops called Ingcel, said to have been a big, rough, horrid monster, with only one eye, which was, however, wider than an ox-hide, blacker than the back of a beetle, and provided with no less than three pupils." Conchobar mac Nessa, another similar char- acter, also came to his death in a most extraor- dinary manner. A ball had been made by mix- ing the brain of a fallen foe, called Mesgregra, with lime. Get, another deadly enemy, secured possession of this ball, and hurled it against Conchobar with so accurate an aim as to wound him most grievously in the skull. After some years, this wound caused his death. Nessa is described as a warlike virago, with whom Fergus mac Roig, king of Ulster, fell in love, but was rejected. Now, this Fergus was endowed with the strength of seven hundred men, and wielded a sword which extended, when- ever he used it, to the dimensions of a rainbow. Nessa had, at last, consented to marriage with Fergus, but only on the condition that he should give up the kingdom for one year to her son Conchobar. At the end of the year, so success- ful had been the administration of the govern- ment that the people would not consent to a THE < nil I' OF THE GODS. 221 change. Fergus attempted to assert his claims by force of arms, but was not successful, and was compelled to flee from the kingdom. ^Engus, much devoted to irresistible music, was the son of Dagdu the Great, who is described as old and fond of porridge, and, withal, a good subject for comic treatment, and the goddess Boann, from whom the river Boyne takes its name. As mac Oc, his foster-father, was Mider, the king of the fairies, whose wife was Etain, a dawn-goddess. A rival separated Mider and Etain. Mac Oc found the dawn-goddess, clad in purple, housed in a glass sun-bower, and fed on fragrance and the bloom of odoriferous flow- ers. Mac Oc seized the bower, and carried it with him whenever he traveled. ^Engus, by throwing his magic mantle around her, protected in a similar manner Grainne, daughter of Cor- mac mac Airt, who declined to wed Finn, king of the fairies and of the dead, and eloped with the solar hero Diarmait. According to ancient story, the Tuatha De Danann were defeated by hostile invaders of their realm, and then withdrew from mortal ken. They retreated into the hills and mounds of Erinn, and there formed an invisible world of their own. Hemce, in the popular belief, the gods are especially associated with the mounds 222 DEPARTED GODS. and cemeteries of the country. The Brugh of the Boyne was the home of Dagda the Great. This home, however, he lost to his crafty son mac Oc, who was thenceforth known as the ^ngus of the Brugh. Tradition represents himself and sons as buried there. The place is described in an old account as most admirable : " There are three trees there, always bearing fruit. There is one pig there, always alive, and another pig al- ways ready cooked; and there is a vessel there, always full of excellent ale." This is the ideal of these old people concerning the happiness of those who dwell in the land of the blessed. There are many myths connected with ^Engus, some of which do not yield to explanation, as when we are told that his four kisses were converted into "birds which haunted the youths of Erinn." Among the numerous legends furnished by Irish literature we select one, which we relate with somewhat of detail: " One night ^Engus, the mac 6c, dreamed that he saw at his bedside a maiden the most beautiful in Erinn. He made a move to take hold of her; but she vanished, he knew not whither. He remained in his bed till the morn- ing; but he was in an evil plight on account of of the maiden leaving him without vouchsafing him a word, and he tasted no food that day. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 223 The next night the same lovely form appeared again at his bedside, and this time she played on the sweetest of musical instruments. The effect on him was much the same as before, and he fasted that day also. This went on for a whole year, and he became the victim of love ; but he told nobody what ailed him. The physicians of Erinn were called in, and one of them at length guessed by his face what he was suffering from. He bade his mother, Boann, be sent for to hear her son's confession. She came, and he told her his story. She then sent for the Dagda, his father, to whom she explained that their son was the victim of a wasting sickness arising from unrequited love, which was considered a fatal disease in ancient Erinn. The Dagda was in bad humor, and declared he could do nothing, which was promptly contradicted ; for he was told that as he was the king of the Side that is, of the gods and fairies of Erinn he might send word to Bodb the Red, king of the fairies of Munster, to use his great knowledge of the fairy settlements of Erinn to discover the maiden that haunted the mac Oc's dreams. ^Engus had now been ill two years, and Bodb required a year for the search ; but he proved successful before the year was out. So he came with the news to the Dagda, and took the mac Oc to see if he could 224 DEPARTED GODS. recognize the lady. The mac Oc did so the moment he descried her, among her thrice fifty maiden companions. These, we are told, were joined two and two together by silver chains, and their mistress towered head and shoulders above the rest. Her name was Caerabar, or. more shortly, Caer, daughter of Etal Anbuar, of the fairy settlement of Naman, in the land of Connaught. She wore a silver collar around her neck and a chain of burnished gold. ^Engus was grieved that he had not the power to take her away, so he returned home ; and the Dagda was advised to seek the aid of Ailill and Medb, the king and queen of the western kingdom. But Caer's father declining to answer the summons that he should appear before them, an attack was made on his residence, when he himself was taken, and brought before Ailill and Medb. He then explained to them that he had no power over his daughter, who, with her companions, changed their forms every other year into those of birds. In fact, he added that on the first day of the ensuing winter they would appear as one hundred and fifty swans on Loch lei draccon oc- cruit cliach, or the Lake of the Mouths of the Dragons, near Cliach's Crowd. Peace was accord- ingly made with Etal, and ^Engus betook him to the shore of the lake on the day mentioned. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 225 Recognizing Caer in the form of a swan, he called to her and said : * Come to speak to ine, Caer.' 'Who calls me?' was the reply. '^Engus calls thee,' he said. * I will come,' said she, ' provided I obtain that thou wilt on thy honor make for the lake after me.' 'I will,' said he. She ac- cordingly came to him, whereupon he placed his two hands on her. Then they flew off in the form of a pair of swans, and they went thrice round the lake. They afterward took their flight to the Brugh of the Boyne, where they made such enchanting music that it plunged every- body in a deep sleep, which lasted three days and three nights. Caer remained at the Brugh of the Boyne as the mac Oc's consort." * This is doubtless the original of the Welsh saga called the Dream of Maxen. The follow- ing is an abstract : " Maxen was emperor of Rome, and the hand- somest of men, as well as the wisest, with whom none of his predecessors might compare. One day he and his courtiers went forth to hunt, and in the course of the day he sat himself down to rest, while his chamberlains protected him from the scorching rays of the sun with their shields. Beneath that shelter he slept, and he dreamt that he was traveling over hill and dale, across * Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 188G, pp. 169-171. 226 DEPARTED GODS. rich lands and fine countries, until at length he reached a sea-coast. Then he crossed the sea in a magnificent ship, and landed in a great city in an island, which he traversed from the one shore till he was in sight of the other; there we find him in a district remarkable for its precip- itous mountains and lofty cliffs, from which he could descry an isle in front of him, surrounded by the sea. He stayed not his course until he reached the mouth of a river, where he found a castle with open gates. He walked in, and there beheld a fair hall, built of stones precious and brilliant, and roofed with shingles of gold. To pass by a great deal more gold and silver and other precious things, Maxen found in the hall four persons ; namely, two youths, playing at chess. They were the sons of the lord of the castle, who was a venerable, gray-haired man, sit- ting in an ivory chair adorned with the images of two eagles of ruddy gold. He had bracelets of gold on his arms, and many a ring glittered on his fingers; a massive gold torque adorned his neck, while a frontlet of the same precious metal served to restrain his locks. Hard by sat his daughter, in a chair of ruddy gold, and her beauty was so transcendent that it would be no more easy to look at her face than to gaze on the sun when his rays are most irresistible. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 227 She was clad in white silk, fastened on her breast with brooches of ruddy gold, and over it she wore a surcoat of golden satin, while her head was adorned with a golden frontlet set with rubies and gems, alternating with pearls and im- perial stones. The narrator closes his descrip- tion of the damsel by giving her a girdle of gold, and by declaring her altogether the fairest of the race. She rose to meet Maxen, who embraced her, and sat with her in her chair. At this point the dream was suddenly broken off by the rest- lessness of the horses and the hounds and the creaking of the shields rubbing against each other, which woke the emperor a bewildered man. Reluctantly and sadly he moved, at the advice of his men, towards home; for he could think of nothing but the fair maiden in gold. In fact there was no joint in his body, or even as much as the hollow of one of his nails, which had not become charged with her love. When his court- iers sat at table to eat or drink, he would not join them, and when they went to hear song and entertainment, he would not go; or, in a word, do anything for a whole week but sleep as often as the maiden slept, whom he beheld in his dreams. When he was awake she was not pres- ent to him, nor had he any idea where in the world she was. This went on till at last one 228 DEPARTED GODS. of his nobles contrived to let him know that his conduct, in neglecting his men and his duties, was the cause of growing discontent. There- upon he summoned before him the wise men of Rome, and told them the state of mind in which he was. Their advice was that messengers should be sent on a three years' quest to the three parts of the world, as they calculated that the expectation of good news would help to sus- tain him. But at the end of the first year the messengers returned unsuccessful, which made Maxen sad ; so other messengers were sent forth to search another third of the world. They re- turned at the end of their year, like the others, unsuccessful. Maxen, now in despair, took the advice of one of his courtiers, and resorted to the forest where he had first dreamt of the maiden. When the glade was reached, he was able to give his messengers a start in the right direction. They went on and on, identifying the country they traversed with the emperor's de- scription of his march day by day, until at last they reached the rugged district of Snowdon, and beheld Mona lying in front of them flat in the sea. They proceeded a little further, and entered a castle where Caernarvon now stands, and there beheld the hall roofed with gold; they walked in, and found Kynan and Adeon playing THE CHIEF Of 1 THE GODS. 229 at chess, while their father, Eudav, son of Kara-, dawg, sat in his chair of ivory, with his daugh- ter Elen seated near him. They saluted her as empress of Rome, and proceeded to explain the meaning of an act she deemed so strnnge. She listened courteously, but declined to go with them, thinking it more appropriate that the em- peror should come in person to fetch her. In due time he reached Britain, which he conquered from Beli the Great and his sons; then he proceeded to visit Elen and her father, and it was during his stay here, after the marriage, that Elen had Caermarthen built, and the stronghold in Eryri. The story adds Caerleon to them, but distin- guishes the unnamed Snowdon city as the favor- ite abode of her and her husband. The next she undertook was to employ the hosts at her command in the construction of roads between the three towns which she had caused to be built in part payment of her maiden-fee. But Maxen remained here so many years that the Romans made an emperor in his stead. So at length he and Elen, and her two brothers and their hosts, set out for Rome, which they had to besiege and take by storm. Maxen was now reinstated in power, and he allowed his brothers-in-law and their hosts to settle wherever they chose; so Adeon and his men came back to Britain, while 20 230 DEPARTED GODS. Kynan and his reduced Brittany, and settled there."* The original of Maxen was probably Merlin Emrys, who seems to have conquered the country from the Chthonian god. Beli the Great. Elen is evidently the dawn-goddess. Caer, with her one hundred and fifty companions with their silver chains, may explain the name of the god- dess in the other story Elen Liiyddawg, "Elen of the Host." The attendants may be an exag- geration of the number of priestesses who were supposed to have presided at her altars. The virgin priestesses of the Isle of Sein, according to Pomponius Mela, could take any form they chose. Sometimes they are merely birds, and sometimes they are designated as swans. The Welsh, in corresponding superstitions, prefer the goose, and treat those who assume this form as witches. ''It was an evil omen to see geese on a lake at night," especially if this were the first Thursday night of the lunar month.f There is a story that Zeus spent a part of his childhood on the summit of one of the Lycnean mountains in Arcadia, and that there, once upon a time, one of the kings sacrificed his child upon his altar. On the same mountain was a sacred *Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 162-165. tRhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 168-175. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 231 spring, and when the water of this holy well was touched by a priest with a branch of an oak, a refreshing shower was sure to bless the thirsty land. The Fountain of Barantori in the forest of Brecilien is equally famous. When the people of the country wanted rain, they would go to this fountain and pour the contents of a tankard filled with its waters upon a slab near at hand, and their wish would be gratified. At the present day, in seasons of drought, the people of the sur- rounding parishes go to this well in procession, their priests ringing bells and chanting hymns ; upon arrival at the sacred spot, the priest of the canton dips the foot of the cross in the water, and rain is sure to follow within a week. There lies in Snowdon Mountain a lake called Dulyn, in a dismal dingle surrounded by high and dangerous rocks ; the lake is exceedingly black, and its fish are loathsome, having large heads and small bodies. No wild swan, or duck, or any kind of bird has ever been seen to light on it, as is their wont on every other Snowdon- ian lake. In this same lake there is a row of stepping-stones, extending into it; and if any one steps on the stones, and throws water so as to wet the furthest stone of the series, which is called the Red Altar, it is but a chance that you do not get rain before night, even in hot weather. 232 DEPARTED GODS. Diarmait and Finn mac Cumaill were search- ing for some of the men of the latter, whom a wizard chief had carried away. They sailed far toward the west till they came to a steep cliff, which seemed to reach to the clouds. With in- credible difficulty and danger, Diarmait alone sur- mounted the cliff, and saw spread before him a beautiful plain, bordered with pleasant hills, shaded by leafy groves, and sweet with lovely flowers. Birds warbled among the trees, bees were busy among the flowers, winds whispered through the foliage, and streams purled and gur- gled as they pursued their course through green fields. Walking out into the plain, he saw straight before him a tree overtopping all the others, laden with much fruit. Near the tree stood a pillar- stone, which was surrounded at a little distance by a circle of other pillar-stones. Near the cen- tral stone was a spring, where water clear as crystal flowed away towards the middle of the plain. He stooped to drink; but before his lips touched the water he was startled by the noise of the heavy tramp of soldiers and the clank of their arms. He sprang to his feet, and looked around, but saw nothing. A second time he stooped to drink, with the same result. While he stood wondering, he saw on the top of the pillar- stone a most beautiful drinking-horn chased with THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 233 gold and enameled with precious stones. He took the horn, filled it with water, and slaked his thirst. Scarcely had he taken it from his lips when he saw a gruagach coming from the east with great strides and full of wrath. He was clad in mail complete, armed with shield and helmet, and sword and spear, and wore a beau- tiful scarlet mantle hung over his armor and fast- ened at his throat with a golden brooch, while a circlet of ruddy gold confined his yellow hair. The gruagach said, with angry voice, that he thought the green plains of Erinn, with the sweet water of their crystal springs, ought to have sat- isfied Diarmait, so that he need not have invaded his island, and drunk from his well in his drinking- horn without permission ; and he furthermore de- clared that he should never leave the spot till he had paid full satisfaction for the insult. They fought all day, and at its close the gruagach leaped into the well and disappeared from sight. Diarmait now went toward the end of the great forest, and killed one of a herd of speckled deer, a portion of the flesh of which, together with water from the fountain, formed his supper. He slept soundly, and prepared a similar breakfast. But the gruagach awaited him at the well, still more angered at him for a double insult he had also killed one of his deer. They fought the sec- 234 DEPARTED GODS. ond day, and at its close the gruagach again leaped into the spring and disappeared. On the third day they met with the same history. But at the end of the fourth day Diarmait threw his arms around his antagonist, and they both dis- appeared in the well together. They reached the ." Land Beneath the Billow," where the gruagach disengaged himself and escaped, and Diarmait was left alone. Here he met with the brother of his strange antagonist, who had been disin- terested. Forming an alliance with this brother, he made war on the gruagach, or Knight of the Fountain, who was ultimately defeated and slain.* The stones which fill a prominent place in some of these legendary tales may have originally represented the deities especially honored. We may recall the account which relates that Merlin advised those who consulted him as to the matter of building Stonehenge to bring the pillar-stones, called the " Choir of the Giants," from the place where they stood at Killarans Mons, in Ireland, and set them up in the same order. They were considered to have been possessed of various vir- tues, especially of the virtue of healing. The giants of old had cured grievous maladies by washing their patients with the water with which * Khys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 187-190. 236 DEPARTED GODS. these stones had first been bathed; or, again, they made application of certain medicinal herbs which had first been dipped in the same holy bath. Thus, according to ancient story, Stonehenge came into existence. The site of this circle of sacred stones in Ireland was perhaps at Usnech, in the county of Westmeath. St. Patrick cursed the sacred stones of Usnech on account of the heathen worship which was performed in the holy place. It is related in like manner -that St. David split the capstone of the Msen Ketti cromlech in Gower, to prove to the people that it was not divine. The hero of these various tales can be no other than the Celtic Zeus. In his early history he was the god of light and of the sun. In his later stages of development, by expansion of his nature and multiplication of his attributes, he became the god of the sky and of heaven, the god of thunder and of rain, and the god of the sea and of all waters. Hence, holy wells with their worship were, in many cases at least, originally connected with this Celtic Zeus. And, the god of the light and of the sun and generally of all the bright powers of nature he fought against the demons of darkness. He was enamored of the goddesses of the dawn, the morning dew, the spring-time, and the flowers. He frequently res- THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. -'57 cued them from imprisonment, enchantment, and tyramiu-al rule. As the god of fountains and all waters, he marshaled the clouds swollen with fertilizing rains, and bade them drop their treas- ures upon the earth, defeated the giants who pos- sessed the fountains, and controlled for the good of mortals the refreshing streams and summer showers. In an ethical sense the Celtic Zeus fights against moral darkness and the giants of evil, and is the source of all spiritual light and blessings. At midsummer, May first, the Druids are said to have caused all fires to be extinguished, and then rekindled from the sacred fire, which they never permitted to go out. These fires were kept burning by Christian priests long after the old religion had passed away. In 1220, Loun- dres, Archbishop of Dublin, extinguished the sa- cred fire kept near the church of Kildare, but it was afterward rekindled, and continued to burn till the suppression of the monasteries. The sa- cred fire was presided over by St. Brigit, and at- tended by virgins. The Beltane was kindled on Midsummer-eve, All-hallow-e'en, and Christmas. Conspicuous places made it visible to multitudes of eyes. In the north of England on Midsum- mer-eve, bonfires were lighted by corporate au- thority in all market-places. At Callander, in 21 238 DEPARTED GODS. Perthshire, the ashes left from the burning of the Beltane were collected, and a circle formed therewith, near the circumference of which a stone was placed for every person who took part in the bonfire. If a stone were removed from its place before morning, it was believed that the person whom it represented would die within one year.* In some parts of Scotland, about the begin- ning of the present century, the festival is de- scribed as follows : " The young people of a ham- let meet in the moors on the first of May. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by cutting a trench in the ground of such cir- cumference as to hold the whole company. They then kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the consistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted at the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide the cake in so many portions, as similar as possible to one another, in size and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of these portions with charcoal until it is perfectly black. They then put all the bits of the cake into a bonnet, and every one, blindfold, draws out a portion. The bonnet-holder is entitled to the last bit. Who- * Anthropological Review, 1886, Vol. IV, p, 346. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 239 ever draws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Beal, whose favor they mean to implore in rendering the year produc- tive. The devoted person is compelled to leap three times over the flames." In England similar observances have been de- scribed : " At the village of Holne, situated on one of the spurs of Dartmoor, is a field of about two acres, the property of the parish, and called the ploy (play) field. In the center of this stands a granite pillar (Menhir) six or seven feet high. On May morning, before daybreak, the young men of the village assemble there, and then proceed to the moor, where they select a ram lamb (doubtless with the consent of the owner), and, after running it down, bring it in triumph to the ploy-field, fasten it to the pillar, cut its throat, and then roast it whole, skin, wool, etc. At midday a struggle takes place, at the risk of cut hands, for a slice, it being supposed to confer luck for the ensuing year on the for- tunate devourer. As an act of gallantry, in high esteem among the females, the young men some- times fight their way through the crowd to get a slice for their chosen among the young women, all of whom, in their best dresses, attend the ram-feast, as it is called. Dancing, wrestling, and other games, assisted by copicus libations of 240 DEPARTED GODS. cider during the afternoon, prolong the festivities till midnight." As late as 1795 fires were lighted at midnight in Ireland in honor of the sun. According to Spencer, the Irish are accustomed to say a prayer whenever they light a fire. On days sacred to the sun, offerings of milk were presented on the gruagach-stone found in every village. In Scotland there was a practice, described by an eye-witnesss, that after a child was bap- tized, and on the return of the party from the church, the infant was swayed three times gently over a flame; or, according to another authority, the child was handed three times across the fire. In Perthshire, in cases of private baptism, there was a custom of passing the child three times around the crook which was suspended over the center of the fire."* As a religious duty, the Highlanders walk round their fields and flocks with some burning substance in their right hand.f In Cornwall we find the same custom, and the torch is carried with the course of the sun. When disease in- vaded a flock, the cattle were forced to pass through a fire, and sometimes a calf was burned as an offering. There are holy wells in Cornwall, * Anthropological Review, 1886, Vol. IV, p. 346. t Logan, The Scottish Gael, pp. 453, 454. THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 241 at which wonderful cures are believed to have been performed; but the superstitious rites have also reference to the motion of the sun. A sick child is dipped into the water three times, but it must be against the direction of the sun's mo- tion ; and the child is passed around the well nine times, but now it must be in the same di- rection with the motion of the sun. It was deemed unlucky to do such work in any other way. Pans of milk should not be skimmed in an order against the sun's course, and cream must not be stirred against the sun. But, on the other hand, to "back" a disease, the motion must be against the sun. Young children are passed through the Men-an-tol "crick-stones," or hold-stones against the sun nine times, to cure various diseases. Sometimes a bonfire is kindled on these stones, and danced around at midsum- mer. On the first Wednesday after midsummer the waters of holy wells are considered especially virtuous. Those guilty of petty offenses may be discovered by means of a fire kindled on a holy stone. A stick is lighted, and the person who can not put out the fire of the burning stick by spitting on it is held to be the guilty one.* At Evreux, in 1683, bodies of dead were exhumed, *Bottrell, Traditions ami llcarthsidf Stories of West Corn- wall, Second Series, pp. 76, 240, 241, 201, 242, 283. 242 DEPARTED GODS. and found with their faces turned to the midday sun.* Such are some of the survivals of the worship of the old Celtic god. The stones of the circle seem to have been replaced by the images of the gods which they represented. In a life of St. Patrick we read the following legend : "Thereafter went Patrick over the water to Mag Slecht, a place wherein was the chief idol of Ireland to-wit, Cenn Cruaich covered with gold and silver, and twelve other idols about it, covered with brass. When Patrick saw the idol from the water, whose name is Guth-ard (i. e. ele- vated its voice), and when he drew nigh unto the idol, he raised his hand to put Jesus's crozier upon it, and did not reach it ; but it bowed west- ward to turn on its right side, for its face was from the South; to-wit, to Tara. And the trace of the crozier abides on its left side still, and yet the crozier moved not from Patrick's hand. And the earth swallowed the twelve other images as far as their heads, and they are thus in sign of the miracle, and he cursed the demon, and ban- ished him to hell."f In the Book of Leinster we find it stated * Logan, The Scottish Gael, p. 479. tRhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 200, 201. THE CHIEF OF THE OODS. 243 that the ancient Irish, in this place, used to sac- rifice the first-born of their children and of their flocks to secure peace and power, milk and corn. The worship of this idol prevailed in the center of Britain. Cenn Cruaich, or "Chief of the Mound,", has its etymological equivalent in the modern Welsh Pen Crug, which, in the Itin- erary of Antoninus, has become Pennocrucium; perhaps the same as the Penkridge in Stafford- shire written Pencrik in a charter of .Ethil- heard of Wessex, of the eighth century. Such spots mark not only worship in high places, but also courts of justice and parliamentary gather- ings. A modern survival is the Eistethvod, held in the interest of music and letters. As late as 1380, Alexander Steward held a court in the temple of the Rath of Kingusie. Perhaps it was from this custom that the Moot-hills origi- nated. Courts were held in churches till prohib- ited by law. When Conn the Hundred-fighter was ascend- ing the gorsedd of Tara, he chanced to tread on a certain stone, which thereupon screamed so loudly as to be heard all over the land. Then followed a thick fog, and out of the fog rode a fairy, who conducted Conn to his residence, and related to him the future history of Ireland. 244 DEPARTED GODS. This stone, called "the Stone of Fal," was one of the four precious things brought to Ireland by the Tuatha De Danann. One of its remark- able properties was that, wherever it was placed, it secured the sovereignty of the country to a Goidel of Milesian descent. While it remained at Tara, it recognized every king by a scream. This stone has been traced from Tara to Scone, the capital of the kingdom of Alban. Edward I brought it to London, where it now rests in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey. Irish and Scotch historians believe that' the Stuarts are descended from Goidelic ancestors of the Mi- lesian race. Thus prophecy has not failed. Since Fal was the old god of light and of the sun, this stone must have originally been connected with such worship. The gorsedd, or court, of the Eistethvod is held within a circle of stones, which has been formed for the purpose, with a larger stone in the middle. According to rule, it is held "in a conspicuous place, within sight and hearing of the country and the lord in- authority, and face to face with the sun and the eye of light, as there is no power to hold a gorseth under cover or at night, but only where and as long as the sun is visible in the heavens." The prayer pro- nounced at the opening of the session by the THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 245 officiating Druid, according to one account, runs as follows : " O God, graut strength ; And from strength, discretion; And from discretion, knowledge ; And from knowledge, the right; And from the right, the love of it ; And from that love, love for all things ; And in love for all things, the love of God !" This would seem to be but a continuation of the old worship of the Celtic Zeus.* "A species of divination is still practiced in Arthurstone by the neighboring rustic maidens, who have little idea that they are perpetuating (perverted, indeed, in its object) the rites of Druidism and the mysteries of Eleusis in their propitiatory offering. At midnight of the full moon, if a maiden deposit in the sacred well be- neath a cake of milk, honey, and barley meal, and then on hands and knees crawl three times round the cromlech, she will see, if * fancy free,' the vision of her future lord. If her affections are engaged, the form of the favored youth will stand before her, fearfully bound to answer truly her questions as to his sincerity." This custom was preserved until within a few years. The acts of Christian councils prove the prev- *Rhys, Ilihbrrt Lectures, IVM;. pp. 208-210. 246 DEPARTED GODS. alence of the former belief in the sacred stones. A council held in 681 warns the adorers of idols, worshipers of stones, and those who light torches in honor of sacred trees and fountains. The laws of Canute prohibit the worship of sun and moon, rocks and fountains. In Brittany two parties covenant together by clasping hands through per- forated stones. Some of the ancient sacred inclosures were of great extent. The temple of Abury, in Wilt- shire, contained more than twenty-eight acres. It was surrounded by a ditch; and its rampart was seventy-five feet high, measured from the bottom of the ditch. Two avenues were con- nected with the temple, and in the temple and its avenues six hundred and fifty stones were used. Some of the stones were of great size one of these was twenty-one feet high and eight feet nine inches in breadth. The temple at Car- nac, in Brittany, was a remarkable structure, extending five or six miles. There are eleven rows of stones, forming ten avenues, and resem- bling a huge serpent. There must have been originally about ten thousand stones. Tradition says that, at midsummer of each year, a stone was added, so that the age of the world was represented. Near this place, at a May-day feast, three hundred unarmed British nobles were THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 247 treacherously slain by the followers of Hengist. From the time of the commission of this bloody crime, on every May-day night, the shriek of the dragon of Britain is heard over every hearth as it contends with the dragon of a for- eign foe. DRUIDICAI, STONES, CARNAC, BRITTANY. The literature of folk-lore is becoming exten- sive. Enthusiastic authors connect all fairy tales, all superstitions, and all customs with early relig- ious beliefs and practices. That this is the true account of the origin of the largest portion of the material we can not doubt, yet we may well hes- itate before the adoption of the rule as one of uni- versal application. We can not but think that something must be loft to pure and deliberate in- ventiveness, playfulness, and mischievousness. 248 DEPARTED GODS. The frolicsoraeness of children and the idle activ- ity of youth and manhood, may do something with no ulterior object beyond temporary amuse- ment. We happen to have known extemporized plays which might be wonderfully connected with old superstitions and primitive religious doc- trines. It would require volumes to record all the cus- toms similar to those given above. They are not peculiar to Druidism, but belong to the whole hu- man race. Their meaning is not exhausted when we refer them to sun-worship. Many have little reference to this ; many' more point to magic, witchcraft, and other superstitions which so thor- oughly dominated the primitive mind. There was a multitude of charms to drive away evil spirits, secure fruitful seasons, and insure the enjoyment of health. The interested reader who desires to pursue this subject further should consult those larger works in which it receives special treat- ment. All these rites, traditions, and customs, doubt- less point to the same early god. He is not the most primitive Celtic Zeus, though possessing cer- tain characteristics of the god of light and of the sun, but the later expansion of the god of the sky and of rain. He had his altars and temples, his sacred trees and holy wells, and was wor- THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 249 shiped in high places. His idol was surrounded by the idols of other gods, who waited upon him as servants. Frequently the sacred tree over- shadowing the holy well bore on its branches bits of rags and other trifles placed there as offerings by enthusiastic devotees. Sometimes modern coins are found among the gifts, showing the persistent life of the superstition. But a new god of light, Lug by name, was com- ing into notice. He was the fairy who had prophesied to Conn the Hundred-fighter the his- tory of Ireland. The Goidelic god of Druidism to whom the oak was sacred had his Welsh counterpart in Math the Ancient. He was able, like the Welsh fairies and demons, to hear every sound of speech which ever reached the air. He was the first of magicians, and ranked even above Merlin and the mac (5c. He was also the highest ideal of jus- tice and equity associated with the heathenism of Wales. He taught the arts to Gwydion, son of Don, the Welsh culture hero, with whose aid he created a woman out of flowers. Gwydion was a great warrior and a consum- mate magician. He was also the god of wisdom and eloquence, and a much traveled personage, who presided over ways and paths. The Celts believed that the blessings which they enjoyed 250 DEPARTED GODS. came from their ancestors in other words, from the nether world. The culture hero, under vari- ous names, resorted again and again to the world of spirits, and, either by force or by craft, suc- ceeded in possessing himself of many desirable gifts, which he brought to the people, and taught them to avail themselves of their useful proper- ties. Various domestic animals were procured in this manner. The cauldron of the King of Hades was one of the most priceless of these treasures. It inspired men with that skill in mu- sic and poetry which has led to high triumphs. We present a tale as the representative of the rich literature which has gathered about this part of our subject. Kei, son of Kynyr ; Owein, son of Urien ; Kynon, son of Klydno, and other knights of Ar- thur's Court, were sitting together and entertain- ing one another with stories. When Kynon's turn came, he related the following : When he was a young man, and traveling abroad to satisfy his curiosity and gratify his love of adventure, he came to a stately castle in a fine valley where he was most hospitably re- ceived. After he had been refreshed, the lord of the castle nsked concerning his name, country, and the object of his visit. He told his host truly, and was informed in reply that were it THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 251 not for getting him into trouble, he could direct him to a place where he would doubtless find more adventure than he wanted. This served only to excite his curiosity, and make him more anxious and restless. At last he prevailed upon his host to tell what the adventure was to which he referred. He told him to return to the forest through which he had just passed, and proceed until he found a road turning to his right. Fol- lowing this road he would come to a large, open field, in which he would find a mound, and on the top of this mound he would behold a black man sitting, as large as any two men of this world. He has but one foot, and but one eye, and that is in the middle of his forehead a very Poly- phemus, indeed. His staff would make a load for any two men of the world. He is the keeper of the forest, and a thousand wild beasts graze about him, all obedient to his will. This black man would be able to give the adventurer further directions. Early the next morning Kynon set out on his journey, and found all as his host had told him, ex- cept the black man seemed far bigger, his staff a full load for four men, and three times as many wild beasts grazing about him, all docile and obedient. Kynon asked him concerning his power over the wild animals. " I will show it thee, lit- 252 DEPARTED GODS. tie man," said he ; and with his great iron staff he struck a blow at a stag, at whose bell there gathered upon the plain beasts, vipers, and ser- pents as numerous as the stars of the sky. The black man then told them to graze, when they all lowered their heads in obeisance to their lord. Kynon then inquired his way to the adventure which he sought, and was told : " Take the road at the end, and proceed up- hill until thou reachest the top. From there thou wilt behold a strath resembling a large val- ley, and in the middle of the strath thou wilt see a large tree, whose foliage is greener than the greenest fir-tree. Beneath that tree there is a fountain ; close to the fountain there is a marble slab ; and on the marble slab there is a silver tank- ard, fastened by a silver chain, so that they can not be separated. Take the tankard and throw it, full of the water, over the slab. Then thou wilt hear a great thunder, and it will seem to thee to make earth and sky tremble. After the thunder will come a cold shower, and with difficulty wilt thou live through the shower. It will be one of hail, and afterward the weather will be fair again; but thou wilt not find a single leaf left on the tree by the shower. Then a flight of birds will come and light on the tree. Thou hast never heard in thy country such good music as they THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 253 Avill make; but when the music is most enter- taining, thou wilt hear a sighing and a. wailing coming along the valley toward thee. There- upon thou wilt behold on a jet-black charger a knight clad in jet-black satin, with a flag of jet- black silk on his spear, making for thee as fast as he can. In case thou fleest, he will overtake thee; and in case thou awaitest him, he will leave thee a pedestrian instead of a rider. Should- est thou not find trouble there, thou needest not seek any as long as thou livest." Kynon followed the directions of the black man, and everything which he had said came to pass. The Black Knight overthrew him, and took away his horse, and he was obliged to trudge back on foot to meet the mockery of the black fellow under whose direction he had gone forth in quest of this adventure. This story stirred up Owein, son of Urien, to try a duel with the Black Knight of the Fount- ain. He slipped away from the court, and fol- lowed in the track of Kynon, met with the same ad ventures by the way, and fought with the Black Knight, but succeeded in giving him a mortal wound. Thereupon the knight turned and fled to his castle. He was admitted, and Owein pursued so closely that he was caught between two heavy doors, one of which was let 22 254 DEPARTED GODS. down behind so as to cut his horse in two close to his spurs. While in this sad plight, he saw, through a crevice, an auburn-haired, curly-headed maiden, with a diadem of gold on her head, com- ing toward the gate. She asked him to open the gate. He said that he would be only too glad to comply with her request if he were able. This maiden was Elunet, a dear friend of the Black Knight's wife, and she proved herself also a true friend of Owein. She praised his gal- lantry, and gave him a ring which would render him invisible, and enable him to escape from the men whom the Black Knight would send to lead him to execution. Owein was successfully con- cealed till after the funeral of his antagonist. Now, it happened that no one could hold the do- minions of the Black Knight who could not hold the fountain, and no one could hold the fountain except some of King Arthur's knights. Elunet pretended to go to his court to obtain a knight, but her absence was so brief that the widow de- tected a deceit. She obtained the confession that Owein had killed her husband, and this proved that, of all men, he was most fitted to hold the fountain. He married the widow, and remained with her three years. But Arthur's longing for Owein was so great that at last he and his knights set out in quest THE CHIEF OF THE GODS. 255 of the missing hero. They found him at the fountain, and were feasted at his castle three months. They then departed, taking with them Owein. His wife was told that he would be ab- sent three months ; but when again among his old companions he quite forgot his wife, and the three months became three years. A strange maiden now appeared, riding on a horse capar- isoned with gold, who went straight up to Owein, took the ring from his hand," and said : " Thus is done to a deceiver, a false traitor, for a dis- grace to thy beard." She then rode away, and Owein, coming to himself, thought of his adven- ture at the fountain. He became sad, and, leav- ing the society of men, lived with the wild beasts of the field and forest. In the course of this unnatural life he rescued a lion from a serpent, and thenceforth this king of beasts became his life-long friend. At last Elunet, or Lunet, suc- ceeded in uniting him again with his wife. He brought her to Arthur's court, and she was his wife as long as he lived.* The normal legend of the Celtic culture god represents him as procuring, as the reward of each adventure, but one, or, at the most, but a limited number of treasures from the world whither the fathers have gone. A few legends, * Khys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 347-353. 256 DEPARTED GODS. like that related above, make him slay the king of Hades and marry his widow, thus gaining control of the whole, with all its priceless gifts, and making them available for the use of man. II. THE SUN-GOD. A RIONRHOD, the niece of Math, and the I~\. mistress of Gwydion, became the mother of twin boys. The one, named Dylan, as soon as he was christened, made for the waters, and could at once swim as easily as a fish. We know nothing more about him, except that his death was caused by a blow dealt by his uncle, Govannon, son of Don. The other son was brought up by Gwydion, and while he was yet in his boyhood he was taken to visit his mother, who had never seen him since his birth. She was enraged to learn that his father had spared his life, and laid him under a stern destiny that he never should re- ceive a name till she herself gave him one, and this she resolutely determined never to do. Now Gwydion, by the use of magic arts, in which he was a consummate master, converted some sedges and sea-weeds into a full-rigged ship, and at the same time converted himself and the lad into cordwainers. They sailed forth, and moored their vessel beneath Arionrhod's castle, where they busily plied their trade, in which they used only the most excellent Cordo- 257 258 DEPARTED GODS. van leather which had ever been seen. Arion- rhod heard of the excellent work of the strangers, and sent an order for a pair of shoes. The shoes were made and brought to her, but found to be too large. Another pair was ordered, but they were too small. By request of the cordwainers, Arionrhod repaired to the ship in person, that they might take her measure. Just then a wren chanced to light on the ship, and the lad took aim so accurately that he hit the bird. Arion- rhod, pleased at his cleverness, laughed aloud, and said that it was with a steady hand that the lion hit the wren Llawgyffes Llew hit the wren. Gwydion, now well-pleased, declared that such should thenceforth be the lad's name. The magic ship immediately returned to its former elements, and Arionrhod saw that she had been outdone. She now put him under another des- tiny, that he never should wear arms till she her- self put them on him, and this she resolved that she would never do. Some years after this event, Llew and his father presented themselves at Arionrhod's gate as bards from South Wales. They received a right hearty welcome, as was becoming to their office, and enjoyed much good cheer. Early the next morning the whole country was seen to be in commotion the sea was full of ships, and THE SUN-OOD. 259 warriors in full armor were landing in all direc- tions. This, too, was the effect of the magic of Gwydion; but she, though always determined to be on her guard, did not suspect the illusion. By Gwydion's advice, she caused the castle gates to be secured, and arms to be brought for the two bards. In fear and haste her handmaid helped Gwydion to put on his arms, while she herself helped Llew to arm himself. When they were fully armed and prepared to defend the castle, the hostile fleet and forces suddenly dis- appeared. She saw that she had again been de- ceived, and her anger was greater than on either former occasion. She put the young man under the awful destiny that he should never have a wife of the race then inhabiting the earth. But Gwydion and his uncle Math were equal to the emergency, and fashioned a woman out of flow- ers, and called her Blodened. This woman was the fairest in the world, and became the wife of Llew. So the young man had escaped the effects of the three curses. But Blodened, after some years, became faith- less, and by the advice of her paramour ques- tioned Llew as to how he could be killed, for she well knew that there was some wonderful secret connected with his life. He told her, and told her truly like Samson of old that if a 260 DEPARTED GODS. bath were prepared for him, and placed in the open air under a thatched roof, and if he stood with one foot on the side of the bath and the other foot on, the back of a he-goat, any wound which he might receive while standing in that position would be mortal. She now persuaded him, just to satisfy her innocent curiosity, to assume the position which he had described; and while he was standing in that fatal position, her lover cast a spear and inflicted a wound. Llew uttered an unearthly scream, and flew off in the form of an eagle. But Gwydion was able to find him, and healed the wound. The guilty paramour of his faithless wife was slain, and Blodened was changed into the form of an owl. The story is not difficult to understand. Llew was the god of the sun, and Blodened was the goddess of the bright dawn. But the dawn has relations not only to light, but also to darkness. When she became unfaithful to Llew, he slew her paramour; and Gwydion pursued her as one account relates the tale across the face of the sky, overtook her in the shades of the West- ern cliffs, and transformed her into a bird of night. The original name of this sun-god was doubt- less not Llew, but rather Lieu, which may be taken to mean light. This god is also related to THE SUN-GOD. 261 the Irish Lug, and we may now compare the ac- count of Lug's birth. Once upon a time there lived on the coast of Donegal, opposite Tory Island, three brothers, whose names were Gavida, MacSamthainn, and MacKineely. Gavida was a distinguished smith, and MacKineely was the lord of the surrounding district. The latter owned a valuable gray cow, and to steal this cow many attempts had been made. At the same time Tory Island was the headquarters of Balor, a most notorious robber. He had one eye in the middle of his forehead, and another in the back of his head. Since the venomous rays of this latter eye would strike one dead, he usually kept it covered. The Druid who was his attendant and priest, revealed to him the destiny that he should die at the hand of his own grandson. Now he had but one child, a daughter, Ethnea by name. He made her a prisoner in a lofty height at the eastern extrem- ity of the island, closely guarded by twelve ma- trons, who were strictly commanded never to mention to her the other sex. - Through trickery, Balor succeeded in stealing MacKineely's wonderful gray cow. A Druid told the owner that he never could recover the cow till Balor was killed. Now this was very difficult, for the robber was never known to close 23 262 DEPARTED GODS. his basilisk eye. A fairy, called " Biroge of the Mountain," came to the aid of MacKineely, and dressing him as a woman, took him through the air to the height Tor More, where Ethnea was kept and guarded. She pretended to have res- cued the woman, and asked for shelter. This was granted, and the fairy put the twelve ma- trons to sleep, for they suspected no deceit. When they awoke, the guests were already gone, they knew not whither. Ethnea became the mother of triplets, which Balor immediately caused to be wrapped in a sheet, and sent out to sea to be drowned in a whirlpool. The eldest of the children fell into the sea before they reached the whirlpool, and was caught up by the fairy. The two others were drowned. The baby which the fairy had rescued was taken to MacKineely, who had it brought up by his brother as a smith. Balor, having learned that MacKineely was the father of his grandchil- dren all of whom he supposed to be dead took him to a large white stone, and there chopped off his head, and the blood penetrated the stone even to its center. Lug for this was the name of the boy grew up to manhood, nursed his wrath against Balor, worked with Gavida diligently as a smith, bided his time ; and at last, taking from his forge an iron rod, he TIU-: *U\-GOD. 263 thrust it into Balor's evil eye, so that it passed through his head and came out on the other side. The Lugnassad were celebrated fairs ami feasts instituted by Lug, and held on the first of August. The greatest of these was that of Taill- tin, held in Meath in honor of Tailltin, by whom Lug was fostered and educated. Similar fairs were held also at Cruachan and Carman. These assemblies corresponded with the English Lam- mas which " seems to have been observed with bread of new wheat," and therefore in some parts of England, and even in some near Oxford, the tenants are bound to bring in wheat of that year to their lord, on or before the first of August. Tailltin was one of the dawn and dusk god- desses. Says Rhys, comprehensively : " The Lammas fairs and meetings forming the Lugnassad in an- cient Ireland, marked the victorious close of the sun's contest with the powers of darkness and death, when the warmth and light of that lumi- nary's rays, after routing the colds and blights, were fast bringing the crops to maturity ; this, more mythologically expressed, was represented as the final crushing of Fomori and Fir Bolg, the death of their king and the nullifying of their malignant spells, and as the triumphant return of 264 DEPARTED GODS Lug with peace and plenty, to marry the maiden Erinn, and to enjoy a well-earned banquet, at which the fairy host of dead ancestors was prob- ably not forgotten. Marriages were solemnized on the auspicious occasion ; and no prince who failed to be present en the last day of the fair durst look forward to prosperity during the coming year." On philological grounds, the cult of Lug may be shown to have originally prevailed through- out the whole of the Celtic territory. The town of Uxama, in Spain, furnishes an inscription which commemorates the building of a temple for the Lugoves, and the presentation of this temple to a college of cobblers. Avenches, in Switzerland, preserves a legend consisting of the single word " Lugoves " probably father and son. The tem- ple being dedicated to a college of cobblers re- minds us of the magic stratagem of Gwydion and Llew to overreach Arionrhod, and secure a name for her son. Cuchulainn was a sun-hero of wonderful ex- ploits. In some respects he seems to have been but a reproduction of his father Lug, while in other respects he was more of a human hero. Like all other sun-heroes, his growth was rapid and his young manhood precocious. He was beardless; his hair was dark near the skin, THE SUX-GOD. 265 blood-red in the middle, and yellow at the top ; and four dimples in color yellow, green, blue, and red adorned both his cheeks. He had bright flashing eyes, the pupils of which were formed of seven or eight gems. When pressed in battle, the calves of his legs would twist round to the front, his mouth would become large enough to contain a man's head, his liver and lungs would come up and become visible so as to be seen swinging in his throat, each hair of his body would become as sharp as a thorn, and a drop of blood or a spark of fire would stand on each, and his eyes would be changed in a fearful and marvelous manner. One of his eyes became as small as a needle's eye, or sunk so far into his head that a heron's beak could not reach it, while the other eye became corre- spondingly large and protruding. The ladies of Ulster, who loved him, are said to have made themselves blind of one eye while conversing with him. Analogous cases of acute loyalty are not unknown in our own country. Whenever engaged in battle he became gigantic in size ; and when the fighting had ended, it was necessary to have three baths ready. He would plunge into the first, and the water would immediately boil over ; he would plunge into the second, and it would instantly become too hot for anybody else to 266 DEPARTED GODS. endure, and only the third would suffice to cool his fiery person. He rode forth to battle in a scythed chariot drawn by two steeds, and swifter than the blasts of spring, and the iron wheels of his chariot sunk so deep into the ground that it was as though an army had dug ditches and thrown up dikes for the defense of the country. He was always distinguished for his remarkable wisdom, sweetness, speech, and many other ex- cellencies. t Ciichulainn fought against Ailill and Medb, king and queen of Connaught. Ailill was one of the representatives of darkness, while his queen was the goddess of the dawn and the gloaming, and hence frequently showed Ciichulainn, the sun- god, not a little friendship. During these terrible conflicts, on one occasion, Lug came from fairy- land, took the place of his son for three days while he slept, and healed the wound which he had received. " Cuchulainn was not more famous for his prowess in the field of battle than for his con- tests with beasts and fabulous creatures of all kinds ; and the following story, which has an in- terest of its own, is told of him when he was as yet only six years old. King Conchobar, hap- pening one day to visit the field where the noble youths of his kingdom were at their games, was THE SUN-GOD. 267 so struck by the feats performed by little Setanta, that he invited him to follow to a feast for which he and his courtiers were setting out. The boy said he would come when he had played enough. The feast was to be at the house of a great smith called Culann, who lived not only by his art of working in metals, but also by the wealth which prophecy and divination brought in. When the king and his men had arrived, Culann asked them if their number was complete, and the king for- getting the boy that was to follow, answered in the affirmative. Culann explained that he asked the question because when his gates were shut in the evening, he used to let loose a terrible war- hound, which he had obtained from Spain to guard his chattels and flocks during the night. So it was done then; but presently the boy Setanta came along, amusing himself with his hurlbat and ball as was his wont. He was hardly aware of the dog barking before it was at him; but he made short work of the brute, though not with- out rousing the Ultonians to horror at their over- sight, for they had no doubt in their minds that the boy had been torn to pieces. The gates were thrown open, and the boy was found unharmed, with the dog lying dead at his feet. Like the rest, Culann welcomed him, for his mother's sake, as he said, but he could not help expressing his 268 DEPARTED GODS, regret at the death of his hound ; for he declared that his losing the guardian of his house and his chattels made his home a desolation. Little Se- tanta, who could not see why so much fuss should be made about the dog, bade the smith have no care, as he would himself guard all his property on the Plain of Murthemne till he had a grown-up dog of the same breed." * He fulfilled his promise, and the Druid who was present gave him his name, Cu-Chulainn, "Culann's Hound." Now Culann was a form of the deity of the other world, and we may compare his hound with the Cerberus of Greek mythology. The powers of darkness and the hostile powers of nature are the demons and monsters against which the god of the sun ever fights. Our sun-hero had many most exciting and perilous adventures in the course of the numer- ous visits which he made to the realm of the dead. It was believed that when the sun sank below the western horizon he had gone to dwell in the world of shades. Thither Cuchulninn went (the place was called the Gardens of Lug) to carry away the beautiful Emer, with whom he was deeply in love. She was the daughter of the dusky king of the nether world, though she * Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 445, 446. THE SUN-GOD, 269 WHS herself the very perfection of grace and beauty, and adorned with all attractive maidenly gifts and accomplishments. We can not fail to recognize in her the goddess of the dawn, who has demanded our attention so many times. It must be remembered that the dawn is not one but many, so that in the course of a year Cuchu- lainn made love with many fair maidens. On one occasion a friendly stranger gave our hero a wheel and an apple, which in some way were to help him as he crossed a difficult plain. The wheel and doubtless the apple or the ball was a symbol of the sun. "While the Ultonians were celebrating the great festival which marked the Calends of winter, and the days immediately before and after them, a flock of wild birds lighted on a loch near them. The ladies of Conchobar's court took a fancy to them, and Cuchulainn was dis- gusted to find that they had nothing better for the men to do than that they should go bird- catching ; but when his gallantry was duly ap- pealed to, with an allusion to the number in Ulster of the noble ladies who were one-eyed out of love for him, he proceeded to catch the birds, which he distributed so liberally that he found, when he came to his own wife, he had none left for her. He was very sorry on that account, 270 DEPARTED GODS. and promised that as soon as ever any wild birds visited the plain of Murthemne or the river Boyne, the finest pair of them should be hers. It was not long ere two birds were seen swimming on the loch. They were observed to be joined together by a chain of ruddy gold, and they made a gentle kind of music, which caused the host to fall asleep. Cuchulainn went towards them; but his wife and his charioteer cautioned him to have nothing to do with them, as it was likely that there was some hidden power behind them. He would not listen, but cast a stone from his sling at them, which, to his astonishment, missed them. He cast another, with the same result. 'Woe is me !' said he. ' From the time when I took arms to this day my cast never missed.' He next threw his spear at them, which passed through the wing of one of the birds, and both dived. Cuchulainn, now in no happy mood, went and rested against a stone that stood near, and he fell asleep. He then dreamed that two women, one in green and the other in red, came up to him. The one in green smiled at him, and struck him a blow with a whip ; the one in red did the same thing, and this horsewhipping of the hero went on till he was nearly dead. His friends came, and would have waked him had not one of them suggested that he was probably THE SUN-OOD. 271 dreaming; so they were careful not to disturb his nap. When, at length, he woke, he would tell them nothing, and he bade them place him in his bed. This all took place on the eve of November, when the Celtic year begins with the ascendency of the powers of darkness. When Cuchulainn had lain in his bed, speaking to no- body for nearly a year, and the Ultonian nobles and his wife happened to be around him, some on the bed and the others close by, they suddenly found a stranger seated on the side of the bed. He said he had come to speak to Cuchulainn ; and he sang a song, in which he informed him that he had come from* his sister Fand and his sister Liban, to tell him that they would soon heal him if they were allowed. Fand, he said had conceived great love for him, and would give him her hand if he only visited her land, and treat him to plenty of silver and gold, together with much wine to drink. She would, moreover, send her sister Liban, on November-eve, to heal him. After having added that his own name was JEngus, brother to Fand and Liban, he dis- appeared as mysteriously as he had come. Cu- chulainn then sat up in his bed, and told his friends all about the dream which had made him ill. He was advised to go to the spot where it occurred to him twelve months previously ; for 272 DEPARTED GODS. such are the requirements of the fairy reckoning of time. He did so, and he beheld the woman in green coming toward him. He reproached her for what she had done, and she explained that she and her sister had come, not to harm him, but to seek his love. Fand, she said, had been forsaken by Manannan mac Lir, and had set her heart on him, Cuchulainn. Moreover, she had a message now from her own husband, Labraid of the Swift Hand on the Sword, to the effect that he would give him Fand to wife for one day's assistance against his enemies. Cu- chulainn objected that he was not well enough to fight; but he was induced to send Loeg, his charioteer, with Liban, to see the mysterious land to which he was invited. Loeg, after con- versing with Fand and Labraid of the Swift Hand on the Sword, returned with a glowing account of what he had seen. This revived the drooping spirits of his master, who passed his hand over his face and rapidly recovered his strength. Even then he would not go to La- braid's isle on a woman's invitation, and Loeg had to visit it again, and assure him that Labraid was impatiently expecting him for the war that was about to be waged. Then, at length, he went thither in his chariot, and fought. He abode there a month with Fand, and when he THE SUN-OOD. 273 left her he made an appointment to meet her at Ibar Cinn Trachta, or the Yew at the Strand's End, the spot, according to O'Curry, where Newry now stands. This came to the ears of Emer, Cuchulainn's wedded wife, and she, with the la- dies of Ulster, repaired there, provided with sharp knives, to slay Fand. A touching scene follows, in which Emer recovers Cuchulainn's love, and Fand beholds herself about to be for- saken, whereupon she begins to bewail the happy days she had spent with her husband Manan- nan mac Lir in her bower at Dun Inbir, or the Fort of the Estuary. Nay, Fand's position in the unequal conflict with the ladies of Ulster became known to Manannan, the shape-shifting Son of the Sea, and he hastened over the plain to her rescue. 'What is that there?' inquired Cuchulainn. 'That,' said Loeg, 'is Fand going away with Manannan mac Lir, because she was not pleasing to thee.' At. those words Cuchu- lainn went out of his mind, and leaped the three high leaps and the three southern leaps of Lua- chair. He remained a long time without food and without drink, wandering on the mountains and sleeping nightly on the road of Midluachair. Emer went to consult the king about him, and it was resolved to send the poets, the professional men, and the Druids of Ulster to seek him and 274 DEPARTED GODS. bring him home to Emain. He would have slain them ; but they chanted spells of Druidism against him, whereby they were enabled to lay hold of his arms and legs. When he had recov- ered his senses a little, he asked a drink, and they gave him a drink of forgetfulness, which made him forget Fand and all his adventures. As Emer was not in a much better state of mind, the same drink was also administered to her; and Manannan had shaken his cloak between Fand and Cuchulainn that they might never meet again.* In this story the world of waters is identified with the world of the dead. Fand, who has been married to the sea-god Manannan mac Lir, has been thought to be the sparkling dew-drop wooed by the sun. In another, this goddess is called "Forgall's Tear;" and Forgall is the father of Emer, and dwells in the Gardens of Lug. Many other legends illustrate the life of this god of the sun, but we have presented perhaps all that is needed to a fair understanding of the subject. Diarmait, another sun-god, was slain by the boar of winter, on the last night of the year. This must have been All-hallow-e'en. In Ire- *Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 459-462. THE SVN-GOD. 275 land this was the day for prophecy and the un- veiling of mysteries; and fires were lighted at Tlachtga, from which all other hearths were sup- plied. In Wales, women were accustomed to assemble, candle in hand, to learn their fortune from the flame, and to learn the names or see the coffins of all who were to die during the year; bonfires were lighted on the hills, and when the last spark had died out, the whole company would run away, shouting : "The cropped black sow Seize the hindmost!" This may have pointed back to the period of human sacrifices. The day was one for demons, goblins, and all hideous and uncanny spirits. The fact is, the sun-god, for a season, had been defeated; and his enemies, now triumphant, stalked abroad, in- solent and aggressive. The chief of these spirits was pictured in the form of a sow, black and grisly, and with neither tail nor ears.* There seems to be no doubt that human sac- rifices were originally offered at several Celtic feasts. At the Beltane, in Scotland, held on the first of May, one man became a victim for his companions. Rhys, Hibtert Lectures, 1886, pp. 513-516. 276 DEPARTED GODS. The sun-god, under the name of Taliessin, was represented as a great poet and bard. As the story goes, Kerridwen and her husband, be- sides other children, had one named Avagdu, who was the ugliest man in the world. Despair- ing of his ever taking his place among gentle- men, unless he possessed surpassing qualities of mind, his mother determined to withhold no ef- fort, and brewed for him a magic cauldron of poesy and science. Leaving the cauldron in the charge of blind Mordav and Gwion-the Lit- tle, she went her way to gather herbs of rare virtue to place in the cauldron. According to the magic formula, the broth was to boil a whole year. But, as chance would have it, three drops fell on one of Gwion's fingers, and burned it so that he thrust it in his mouth. Upon doing this, immediately he knew everything. He knew that he had everything to fear from Kerridwen. So he fled for his life; and the cauldron burst, and the broth was wasted. He was pursued, and to escape, often changed his form; but Ker- ridwen was ever close on his track. At last, when he became a grain, Kerridwen became a crested black hen, and devoured him. Being born again, he was wrapped in a hide, and cast into the sea. The hide was picked up on one of the stakes of Gwydno's fish-net, on the first of THE SUN-GOD. 277 May. This young adventurer was Taliessin, who very soon recited three poems, and demon- strated his precocious development in wisdom and speech. The magic broth was brewed for Avagdu, who was known to the Welsh as a synonym for Hell. We have already remarked the deriva- tion of poetry and all knowledge from the powers of the nether world. Without relating the story of Taliessin further, we follow the line of thought suggested by the three drops of magic broth. We may compare the Irish Finn with Gwion. To guard him from his enemies, he was sent to be educated by a poet, also named Finn. The boy found the poet watching Fiac's Pool, in the Boyne, to catch one of the " Salmon of Knowl- edge." There was a prophecy that one of these would be caught by Finn, who, after eating it, would know everything. At the end of seven years he caught the fish, and handed it to his pupil to cook. The boy burned his thumb, and put it in his mouth. His tutor learned this, and also that his name was Finn. Recognizing the fulfillment of prophecy, he gave him the whole Salmon of Knowledge. Whenever, thereafter, Finn wished to know anything he had only to chew his thumb, and all knowledge was immedi- ately present to his mind. 24 278 DEPARTED GODS. Says Professor O'Curry: "In these very early times there was a certain mystical fount- ain, which was called Connla's Well situated, so far as we can gather, in Lower Ormond. As to who this Connla was, from whom the well had its name, we are not told; but the well it- self appears to have been regarded as another Helicon by the ancient Irish poets. Over this well there grew, according to the legend, nine beautiful mystical hazel-trees, which annually sent forth their blossoms and fruits simultane- ously. The nuts were of the richest crimson color, and teemed with the knowledge of all that was refined in literature, poetry, and art. No sooner, however, were the beautiful nuts pro- duced on the trees, than they always dropped into the well, raising, by their fall, a succession of shining red bubbles. Now, during this time, the water was always full of salmon; and no sooner did the bubbles appear than these salmon darted to the surface and ate the nuts, after which they made their way to the river. The eating of the nuts produced brilliant crimson spots on the bellies of the salmon; and to catch and eat these salmon became an object of more than mere gastronomic interest among those who were anxious to become distinguished in the arts and in literature, without being at the pains THE SUN-GOD. 279 and delay of long study; for the fish was sup- posed to have become filled with the knowledge which was contained in the nuts, which, it was believed, would be transferred in full to those who had the good fortune to catch and eat them."* It is related that Sinann, daughter of Lodon, son of Lir, once upon a time, looked into the sacred well, when the water burst forth, and pursued and drowned her for the insult. This was the origin of the river Shannon. A similar story is related concerning a lady, Boann by name. She looked into the sacred well, and an infuriated stream pursued her even to the sea, where she was drowned. This stream is the river Boyne. We may compare this Celtic Tree of Knowl- edge, and the fountain beneath its shade, with the mighty Ash of the Norse, and Mimer's Spring under one of its roots, for one draught of which Odin pledged his eye. Among the gods mentioned in this discussion stands prominently Manannan, the god of the sea. He is represented as a celebrated merchant of the Isle of Man, .and the best pilot in the west of Europe. He was able to foretell foul or fair weather, with absolute certainty, by study- Rhys, Hiblx-rt lA-rturvs, 1880, pp. 553, 554. 280 DEPARTED GODS. ing the stars. He was the son of Lir the original of Shakspeare's King Lear but is also called the son of Allot, of the tribe of the Tuatha De Danann. In Irish story he is the chief of the fairies of the Land of Promise. His Welsh counterpart is Manawyddan, who is described as peaceful, gentle, and just. Bran, the brother of Manawyddan, gave his sister in marriage to Matholwch, king of Ireland, but she was disgraced and driven from the court, and yet because of no fault of her own. Her brother made an expedition to Ireland to avenge her wrongs. Since no ship could be constructed large enough to receive him, he was compelled to wade the intervening waters. "As he approached the Irish shore the swine- herds of Erinn hastened to Matholwch's court with the strange story that they had seen a for- est on the sea, and near it a great mountain with its spur flanked by two lakes; they added that both forest and mountain were in motion towards the land. Nobody could explain this until Bran- wen was summoned, and she told them that the trees were the masts of her countrymen's vessels, that the mountain they had seen must be her brother wading through shallow water, and that the mountain spur with the two lakes were his nose and eyes ; she opined that his countenance THE SUN-GOD. 281 betokened anger towards Erinn. Matholwch and his host hastened to place a river between them and the invaders. When the latter reached the stream, they found the 'bridge over it gone and the current impassable, until Bran laid himself across its bed, and hurdles were placed on his body, so that his men passed over safely." Reconciliation was effected, and the Irish built for Bran a great palace. But peace continued not ; for again there was a quarrel, resulting in a great slaughter in the palace, whence only Bran and seven of his men escaped alive. Having been wounded he ordered his men to cut off his head and take it with them to their own country. These seven men sat seven years at dinner at Harlech, in the society of Bran's head, listening to the song of the Birds of Rhiannon ; and then they feasted eighty years in the island of Gwales. Much is said in Celtic literature concerning this wonderful head. Cernunnos, who may be the same of whom we shall have more to say in a future chapter is sometimes represented as a mere head or as a triple head. There are several other Celtic gods which might be mentioned, but the limits of this work do not permit any detailed study of their characters. The key to the solution of this mythological 282 DEPARTED GODS. system has already been given the friendly or malevolent character of these divinities and spir- its with reference to the world and man. The cold mists and baleful fogs which retard vegeta- tion; the excessive damps so injurious to crops, and the processes of corruption so difficult for primitive peoples to understand ; the consuming drought of summer; the early frosts and the late wintry storms, these are some of the facts which our fathers sought to explain. Frequently what is presented in ancient story as early wars be- tween hostile tribes is but the ever repeated con- flict between good and evil spirits. The custom of the Celts of all times concern- ing the disposition of the dead points to the doc- trine of immortality. The departed journeyed to some happy home, frequently located in the west. " A general belief of the Gael was that the future state of permanent happiness was in Flath-innis, a remote island in the west ; but they also thought that particular clans had certain hills to which the spirits of their departed friends had a peculiar attachment."* Baring-Gould, on the authority of Macpherson, relates the following legend : " One day a famous Druid of Skerr sat upon the rocks by the sea-shore, musing. A storm * Logan, The Scottish Gael, p. 463. THE SUX-GOD. 283 arose, the waves dashed high and the winds howled. Out of it a boat, with white sails and gleaming oars, emerged. In it were no sailors ; the boat seemed to live and move of itself. A voice called to the Druid : ' Arise, and see the Green Isle of those who have passed away !' He entered the boat ; the wind shifted at once, and amid clouds and spray he sailed forth. Seven days gleamed on him through the mist; on the eighth the waves rolled violently, the vessel pitched, and darkness thickened around him, when suddenly he heard a cry, * The Isle ! the Isle !' The clouds parted be- fore him, the waves abated, the wind died away, and the vessel rushed into dazzling light. Be- fore his eyes lay the isle of the departed, bask- ing in golden light. Its hills sloped, green and tufted with beauteous trees, to the shore ; the mountain-tops were enveloped in bright and trans- parent clouds, from which gushed limpid streams, which, wandering down the steep hill-sides with pleasant harp-like murmur, emptied themselves into the twinkling, blue bays; the valleys were open and free to the ocean ; trees loaded with leaves, which scarcely waved to the light breeze, were scattered on the green declivities and rising ground; all was calm and bright; the pure sun of autumn shone from his blue sky on the fields ; he hastened not to the west for repose, nor was he 284 DEPARTED GODS. seen to rise in the east, but hung as a golden lamp, ever illuminating the Fortunate. There, in radiant halls, dwelt the spirits of the departed, ever blooming and beautiful, ever laughing and About the year 575 the learned classes of Ire- land were organized by a Parliament, which was held at Druimceta. Three orders were recog- nized Gradh Ecna, Gradh Fene, and Gradh Fili. Ecna means wisdom, and its graduate is a Sai or sage. The sage who graduates in its highest de- gree is Ollamh, and enjoys the rank of a tribe- king. He settles all questions between tribes, interprets laws, decides concerning the succession of chiefs, and is the historian and genealogist of the tribe. The function of judge passed from the Druids to the chiefs. The judge was a Sai, and kept a kind of law-school. The chief, when the office devolved upon him, and he did not wish to perform its duties personally, appointed another to the judgeship. Hence arose the second learned class, the Gradh Fene. The Fili represented the Ovates, and some of the forms of their incanta- tions have been preserved. The Ollamh Fili pro- nounced eulogies in praise of his chief, and earned for himself various emoluments. The Bards, who recited stories and poems, were at first distinct from the Fili, but the two orders afterward coa- THE SUN-GOD. 285 lesced. To the Druidic order probably belonged the physician, the Fath-Liag. Dian Cecht was the old god of healing. The influence of Druid- ism is seen in the organization of the early Chris- tian Churches of England and Ireland. When a Christian missionary succeeded in leading a chief and some of the principal men of his tribe to Christ, the missionary himself was frequently adopted into the tribe as a Sai, and enjoyed the same rank and privileges as a Druidic priest. The learned orders remained the same, but Christian doctrines were added to the studies. The organ- ization of the early schools of Ireland was influ- enced by Druidism. The course of study, called Filidecht, which the Ollamh Fill pursued, occupied twelve years, and included the secret language of the poets, the knowledge of numerous tales and poems, the art of vaticination, and other lore. In Wales each king or prince had a household bard, called Bardd Teuleu, to whom the functions of the Irish Sai and Fili belonged. There was also a chief bard, called Pencedd, who was either an officer of the household or sometimes inde- pendent. Like an Ollamh, he could make a cir- cuit for purposes of song, or keep a school for the study of poetry. He enjoyed many priv- ileges and emoluments, and was one of the four- 286 DEPARTED 00 DS. teen persons who were entitled to a chair at the court. The modern bards of Wales are thought by some writers to be the religious descendants of the ancient Druids, or, at least, to be the depos- itaries of genuine Druidic lore. The system of Neo-Druidism is gigantic and carefully wrought ; but the evidence upon which it is based is far from satisfactory. We may, however, thankfully admit that it contains not a few fragments of ancient wisdom. Several volumes of mystic learning have been published. A few passages from the teachings of the modern bards will not be out of place : "When God pronounced his name, with the word sprang the light and the life ; for previ- ously there was no life except God himself." The form of the light was the unpronounceable name of God in the three mystic characters by which God declared his " existence, life, knowl- edge, power, eternity, and universality." "And in the declaration was his love ; that is, co-instan- taneously with it sprang, like lightning, all the universe into life and existence, co-vocally and co-jubilantly with the uttered name of God, in one united song of exultation and joy." From this revelation of the name of God, Menw the THE fiUX-dOD. 287 Aged, son of Menwd, obtained the three letters from which he formed the alphabet. This mystic name must not be uttered in the hearing of any man in the world. " Nevertheless, everything calls him inwardly by this name the sea and land, earth and air, and all the visibles and in- visibles of the world, whether on the earth or in the sky; all the worlds of the celestials and ter- restrials, every intellectual being and existence, everything animate and inanimate. Wherefore none that honors God will call him by this name, except inwardly." Much of the teaching of the modern bards is given in triads, of which we give examples : " Three things will necessarily exist : the su- preme power, the supreme intelligence, and the supreme love of God. "The three characteristics of God: complete life, complete knowledge, and complete power. "The three manifestations of God: father- hood, sonship, and spirituality. " The three supports of a moral man : God, his own conscience, and the praise of all the wise. " The three felicities of heaven : the utter subjugation of all evil, everlasting life, and the endless renovation of bliss." * * Williams, Barddas, Vol. I, pp. 17-23, 171, 183, 185. 288 DEPARTED GODS. The bards of Neo-Druidism teach both the pre-existence and the transmigration of souls. Existence begins in the lowest form of life, and at each successive death passes into some other body, till all possible lower existences have been traversed, when it enters the body of man. He can choose good or evil. If he choose good, and good predominate at his death, he enters Gwyn- vyd, or heaven, from which he can not fall. If he choose evil, and evil predominate at his death, the soul appears in some lower animal correspond- ing in character to his own character at death. He may now rise step by step till he again be- comes a man, when he has another opportunity of choosing. He may fall again and again, but ultimate success is assured, because the same sin can not be committed or can not produce the same evil results the second time. So all life will end in Gwynvyd. The soul begins exist- ence in lowest Annwn, passes through the irre- sponsible lives of the circle of Abred below man, in which evil predominates; passes through the responsible human circle of existence, in which good and evil equiponderate ; and finally en- ters Gwynvyd, where good predominates, and from which the soul can not fall. Man seems not to be free to choose precisely the same THE SUN-GOD. evil the second time ; hence heaven is finally assured.* The white robe of the Druid is a symbol of holiness, the green robe of the Ovate a symbol of knowledge, and the blue robe of the Bard a symbol of peace and love. * Williams, Barddas, Vol. I, pp. xlii, 213-217. III. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. WE shall now be prepared to appreciate wh.it classic writers say concerning the relig- ion of the Celts. We may also listen to the voice of monumental witnesses. Caesar is a very trustworthy authority. He speaks from personal knowledge in many cases, as he always had access to many relinble sources of information. He writes with deliberation and judgment, and furnishes the fullest and most sat- isfactory account of all the writers who have treated the subject: As to integrity and hon- esty, he is an unimpeachable witness. Speaking of the Druids of Gaul, he says: " They preside over sacred things, have the charge of public and private sacrifices, and ex- plain their religion. To them a great number of youths have recourse for the sake of acquiring instruction, and they are in great honor among them; for they generally settle all their disputes, both public and private ; and if there is any transgression perpetrated, any murder committed, or any dispute about inheritance or boundaries, 290 THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 291 they decide in respect of them. They appoint rewards and penalties; and if any private or public person abides not by their advice, they restrain him from the sacrifices. This with them is the most severe punishment. . . . But one presides over all these Druids, who possesses the supreme authority among them. ... At a certain time of the year they assemble in session on a consecrated spot in the confines of the Car- nutes, which is considered the central region of the whole of Gaul. Thither all who have any disputes come together from every side, and ac- quiesce in their judgments and decisions. The institution is thought to have originated in Britain, and to have been thence introduced into Gaul ; and even now those who wish to become more accurately acquainted with it generally repair thither for the sake of learning it. The Druids usually abstain from war; nor do they pay taxes together with the others. They have exemption from warfare, and the free use of all things. . . . Some continue at their education for twenty years. Nor do they deem it lawful to commit those things to writing, though generally, in other cases, and in their public and private ac- counts, they use Greek letters. They appear to me to have established this custom for two rea- sons : because they would not have their tenets 292 DEPARTED GODS. published, and because they would not have those who learn them by trusting to letters neg- lect the exercise of memory. ... In particular they wish to inculcate the idea that souls do not die, but pass, after death, from one body to an- other. . . . They also dispute largely concerning the stars and their motion, the magnitude of the world and the earth, the nature of things, the force and power of the immortal gods, and in- struct the youth in their principles. The whole nation of the Gauls is very much given to relig- ious observances, and on that account those who are afflicted with grievous diseases, and those who are engaged in battles and perils, either im- molate men as sacrifices or vow that they will immolate themselves ; and they employ the Druids as ministers of those sacrifices, because they think that if the life of man is not given for the life of man the immortal gods can not be appeased. They have also instituted public sac- rifices of the same kind. Some have images of immense size, the limbs of which, interwoven with twigs, they fill with living men ; and the same being set on fire, the men, surrounded by the flames, are put to death." ' For these sacrifices they preferred criminals ; but when these failed, they did not hesitate to * Gallic War, vi, 13-18. THE CLASSICS AND THE IKSCRII'T/oX*. 293 sacrifice the innocent. They worshiped certain gods which Ciesar identified with Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Strabo gives the following account : " Amongst the Gauls there are generally three divisions of men especially reverenced the Bards, the Vates, and the Druids. The Bards composed and chanted hymns; the Vates occupied themselves with the sacrifices and the study of nature ; while the Druids joined to the study of nature that of moral philosophy. The belief in the justice of the Druids is so great that the decis- ion both of public and private disputes is referred to them; and they have before now, by their decision, prevented armies from engaging when drawn up in battle array against each other. All cases of murder are particularly referred to them. When there is plenty of these, they imagine there will likewise be a plentiful harvest. Both these and the others assert that the soul is indestructible, and likewise the world j but that sometimes fire and sometimes water have pre- vailed in making great changes." The Romans put a stop to their modes of sac- rifice and divination. They would strike a man devoted as an offering in his back with a sword, and divine, from his convulsive throes. Without the Druids they never sacrifice. It is said they 294 DEPARTED GODS. have other modes of sacrificing their human vic- tims ; that they pierce some of them with ar- rows, and crucify others in their temples ; and that they prepare a colossus of hay and wood, into which they put cattle, beasts of all kinds, and men, and then set fire to it. " They say that in the ocean, not far from the coast, there is a small island lying opposite to the outlet of the river Loire, inhabited by Sam- nite women, who are Bacchantes, and conciliate and appease that god by mysteries and sacrifices. No man is permitted to land on the island. . . . They have a custom of once a year unroofing the whole of the temple, and roofing it again the same day before sunset, each one bringing some of the materials. If any one lets her burden fall, she is torn in pieces by the others, and her limbs carried round the temple with wild shouts, which they never cease till their rage is ex- hausted. They say it always happens that some one drops her burden, and is thus sacrificed." The inhabitants of lerna, or Hibernia, are "more savage than the Britains, feeding on hu- man flesh, and are enormous eaters, even deeming it commendable to devour their deceased fathers." They are openly impure and incestuous. "It is reported that the Cimbri had a pecul- iar custom. They were accompanied in their THE CLASSICS AXD '1 HE INSCRIPTIONS. 295 expeditions by their wives ; these were followed by hoary-headed priestesses, clad in white, with cloaks of carbasus fastened on with clasps, girt with brazen girdles, and barefooted. These in- dividuals, bearing drawn swords, went to meet the captives throughout the camp, and having crowned them, led them to a brazen vessel con- taining about twenty amphorae, and placed on a raised platform, which one of the priestesses having ascended, and holding the prisoner above the vessel, cut his throat; then, from the manner in which the blood flowed into the vessel, some drew certain divinations, while others, having opened the corpse and inspected the entrails, prophesied victory to their army."* Arteinidorus says that there is an island near Britain in which they perform sacrifices to Ceres and Proserpine in the same manner as they do in Samothrace.f Diodorus Siculus writes of the Druids of Gaul as follows : "And there are among them composers of verses, whom they call Bards ; these, singing to instruments similar to a lyre, applaud some, while they vituperate others. There are also certain philosophers and priests, surpassingly es- r:ilH>, IV, iv, 4-ti; v, 4; VII, ii, 3. tStrabo, IV, iv, 0. 296 DEPARTED GODS. teemed, whom they call Druids. They have also soothsayers, who are held in high estimation; and these, by auguries and the sacrifice of vic- tims, foretell future events, and hold the com- monalty in complete subjection; and more es- pecially, when they deliberate on matters of moment, they practice a strange and incredible rite-; for, having devoted a man for sacrifice, they strike him with a sword on a part above the diaphragm; the victim having fallen, they augur from his mode of falling, the contortion of his limbs, and the flowing of the blood, what may come to pass, giving credence concerning such things according to an ancient and long- standing observance. They have a custom of performing no sacrifice unattended by a philoso- pher; for they say that thanksgiving should be offered to the gods by men acquainted with the divine nature and using the same language, and by these they deem it necessary to ask for good things; and not only in the concerns of peace, but even of war not friends alone, but even enemies also chiefly defer to them and to the composers of verses. Frequently, during hostil- ities, when armies are approaching each other with swords drawn and lances extended, these men, rushing between them, put an end to their THE CLA vs I< v I Y/> THE INSCRI1' II' \ * 297 contention, turning them as they would tame wild beasts."* Diodorus quotes from Hecateus, the Melesian, who wrote about B. C. 500 : " Among the Hyperboreans were men priests, as it were, of Apollo constantly hymning lyric songs in his praise. Also in that island was a consecrated precinct of great magnificence, a temple of corresponding beauty, in shape spher- ical, adorned with numerous dedicated gifts; also a cit) sacred to the god, the majority of its in- habitants harpers, who, continually harping in the temple, sung lyrical hymns to the god, greatly magnifying his deeds. . . . Every nineteenth year the god descends into this island. This was the great year of the Hellenes. When the god makes his periodical visit, he both plays the harp and dances during the night, from the vernal equinox to the rising of the Pleiades, taking great delight in his own success- ful efforts." Hecateus, who makes Britain the land of the Hyperboreans, may have derived his knowledge from the reports of Phoenician merchants. What he says is worthy of some consideration, what- ever we may think of this race, which is at least History, V, 31. 298 DEPARTED GODS. semi-fabulous. Pliny gives a brilliant account of. this happy race.* We quote several passages from Pliny, whose testimony is valuable as presenting truthful ac- counts of the beliefs of his time : "The Druids for that is the name they give to their magicians held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, supposing always that tree to be the robur. Of itself the robur is selected by them to form whole groves, and they perform none of their religious rites without employing branches of it; so much so, that it is very probable that the priests themselves may have received their name from the Greek name for that tree. In fact, it is the notion with them that everything that grows on it has been sent immediately from heaven, and that the mistletoe upon it is a proof that the tree has been selected by God himself as an object of his especial favor. "The mistletoe, however, is but rarely found upon the robur, and, when found, is gathered with rites replete with religious awe. This, is done more particularly on the fifth day of (he moon, the day which is the beginning of their months and years, as also of their ages, which, with them, are but thirty years. This day they * Natural History, iv, 26. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 299 select because the moon, though not yet in Ihe middle of her course, has already considerable power and influence; and they call her by a name which signifies, in their language, the all- healing. Having made all due preparation for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath trees, they bring thither two white bulls, the, horns of which are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe, the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is re- ceived by others in a white cloak. They then immolate the victims, offering up their prayer that God will render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has so granted it."* Savin also is sacred, and must be gathered with superstitious rites. " Care is taken to gather it without the use of iron, the right hand being passed for the purpose through the left sleeve of the tunic, as though the gatherer were in the :ict of committing a theft. The clothing too must be white, the feet bare and washed clean, and a sacrifice of bread and wine must be made before gathering it; it is carried also in a new napkin." The " samolus " must be gathered fasting with the left hand, the person who gath- ers it being careful not to look behind. If these superstitions belong to the Druids, they are Natural History, xvi, 95. 300 DEPARTED GODS. not unlike multitudes of others related by Pliny. * An egg, said to be of peculiar formation, is held in great repute among the Druids. " In summer-time, numberless snakes become artificially entwined together, and form rings around their bodies with the viscous slime which exudes from their mouths, and with the foam se- creted by them ; the name given to this sub- stance is ' anguinem.' The Druids tell us that the serpents eject these eggs into the air by their hissing, and that a person must be ready to catch them in a cloak, so as not to let them touch the ground. They say also that he must instantly take to flight on horseback, as the serpents will be sure to pursue him until some intervening river has placed a barrier between them. The test of its genuineness, they say, is its floating against the current of a stream, even though it be set in gold. But as it is the way with ma- gicians to be dexterous and cunning in casting a veil about their frauds, they pretend that these eggs can only be taken on a certain day of the moon; as though, forsooth, it depended entirely upon the human will to make the moon and the serpents accord as to the moment of this oper- ation. * Natural History, xxiv, 62, 63. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 301 " I myself, however, have seen one of these eggs ; it was round, and about as large as an ap- ple of moderate size ; the shell of it was formed of a cartilaginous substance, and it was sur- rounded with numerous cupules, as it were, re- sembling those upon the arms of the polypus." * The Annals of Tacitus contains this account of the Druids of Britain : " When Mona, or Anglesey, was invaded by Suetonius Paulinus, there stood in the distance on the strand an army in battle array, thick with armed men. Women with disheveled hair, clad in funeral garments, like furies ran to and fro, holding aloft flaming torches. There were Dru- ids also, with hands uplifted to heaven, pouring forth terrible imprecations. The soldiers were struck with awe and terror at the novelty of the sight; so that, as if their limbs clung to the ground, they presented their unmoved bodies to the wounds which the enemy might inflict. When the island was taken, the religious groves, ded- icated to superstition and barbarous rites, were leveled to the ground. In their recesses the na- tives imbrued their altars with the blood of the prisoners, and in the entrails of men explored the will of the gods."f Ammianus Marcellinus says : " Throughout Natural History, xxix, 12. tTaoitus, Annals, xiv, 31. m 302 DEPARTED GODS. these provinces, the people gradually becoming civilized, the study of liberal accomplishments flourished, having been first introduced by the Bards, the Eubages, and the Druids. The Bards were accustomed to employ themselves in cele- brating the brave achievements of their illustri- ous men, in epic verse, accompanied with sweet airs on the lyre. The Eubages investigated the system and sublime secrets of nature, and sought to explain them to their followers. Between these two came the Druids, men of loftier gen- ius, bound in brotherhoods according to the pre- cepts and example of Pythagoras; and their minds were elevated by investigations into secret and sublime matters, and from the contempt which they entertained for human affairs they pronounced the soul immortal." * Lucan contains several passages of interest : " You, too, ye Bards, who, as poets, hand down in your praises to remote ages spirits valiant, and cut off in war, freed from alarm, did then pour forth full many a strain ; and you, Druids, after arms were laid aside, sought once again your bar- barous ceremonials and the ruthless usages of your sacred rites. To you alone has it been granted to know the gods and the divinities of * History, xv, 9. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 303 heaven, or alone to know that they do not exist. In remote forests do you inhabit the deep glades. On your authority the shades seek not the silent abodes of Erebus, and the pallid realms of Pluto in the depths below ; the same spirit controls other limbs in another world ; death is the mid space in a prolonged existence, if you sing what is ascertained as truth." And again : " There was a grove, never vio- lated during long ages, which with its knitted branches shut in the darkened air and the cold shade, the rays of the sun being far removed. This no rustic Pans and Fauns and Nymphs, all- powerful in the groves, possessed, but sacred rites of the gods barbarous in their ceremonial, and elevations crowned with ruthless altars ; and every tree was stained with human gore. If at all, antiquity, struck with awe at the gods of heaven, has been deserving of belief, upon these branches, too, the birds of the air dread to perch, and the wild beasts to lie in the caves ; nor does any wind blow uponthose groves, and lightnings hurled from the dense clouds ; a shuddering in themselves prevails among the trees that spread forth their branches to no breezes. Besides, from black springs plenteous water falls, and the sad- dened images of the gods are devoid of art, and 304 DEPARTED OODS. stand unsightly, formed from hewn trunks. The very moldiness and paleness of the rotting wood now renders people stricken with awe; not thus do they dread the deities consecrated with ordinary forms; so much does it add to the terror not to know what gods they are in dread of. Fame, too, reported that full oft the hollow caverns roared amid the earthquake, and that yews that had fallen rose again, and that flames shone from a grove that did not burn, and that serpents em- bracing the oaks entwined around them. The people throng that place with no approaching worship, but have left it to the gods. When Phoebus is in the mid-sky, or dark night pos- sesses the heavens, the priest himself dreads the approach, and is afraid to meet with, the guar- dian of the grove." * This author even mentions the Celtic names of certain deities : " The relentless Teutates," " appeased by direful bloodshed ;" u Hesus, dreadful with his merciless altars ;" and the shrine of Taranis, not more human than that of Scythian Diana." f Diogenes Laertius calls the Druids philoso- phers, and compares them with the Magi among the Persians, the Chaldsei among the Babylo- *Pharsalia, pp. 29, 30, 112, 113. t Ib., p. 29. THE c/,.-i /<> ,i.v/) TV//-: INSCRIPTIONS. 305 nians and Assyrians, and the Gymnosophista 1 among the Indians.* There are several olher classical allusions, but they afford little new information. Pompo- nius Mela says that the Druids are eloquent in speech and masters of wisdom, and teach that men should be brave, especially in war. Accord- ing" to this authority, the business accounts of men are sent with them to the other world for inspection and settlement. Some immolate them- selves on the funeral pyres of their friends, that they may accompany them to the world of spirits. Quintus, the brother of Cicero, was intimately acquainted with Divitiacus the Druid, an ^Eduan, who professed an intimate knowledge of the sys- tem of nature, and foretold future events. Lam- pridius and Vopiscus make mention pf prophetic women, one of whom is said to have foretold the death of Diocletian. Scholars are not agreed as to the etymology of the name Druid. Druidh is still used in Gaelic for " wise men," and druithnich, or drui, for " servants of truth." Menage, derives the word from drus, " a magician ;" and according to Keysler draoi means "a magician, an enchanter." The Abbe Pierre de Chiniac derives from de, "god "and rouyd, "speaking;" hence the word Tin- Lives and Opinions of Kinincnt Philosophers, i, 1. 306 DEPARTED GODS. would mean " speaking of God." The ancient Highlanders called the tiller of the soil "drao- naich," which is thought to be a genuine name of the Picts. In Ireland draoneach means " an artist."* The common derivation is from the Greek <^, "an oak;" Welsh, derw ; Armorican, dero, derv; Cornish, dar; Gaelic, darach/j- John Rhys, our latest and greatest authority, agrees with Pliny in deriving the word from the Greek, and refers to Drunemeton, the sacred oak grove, where Strabo says the Galatians were wont to assemble.^ From our classic quotations we may also learn that the religion of the Druids was so far developed as to provide for an order of priest- hood presided over by an Arch-Druid. The priests were learned, influential, and privileged, and were judges in most important public and private cases. They were devoted to the acqui- sition and dissemination of learning. Their mys- teries were unwritten, and were transmitted by memory alone. They offered sacrifices some- times human sacrifices in a sacred shrine. They prophesied concerning the future. They believed in the immortality and the transmigra- * Logan, Scottish Gael, pp. 448, 295, 296. tZeuss, Graminatiea Celtica, Vol. I, p. 7. JRhyfe, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp.- 221, 222. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 307 lion of souls. They recognized responsibility and sin, and trusted in the efficacy of sacrifices, prayers, and religious rites. They worshiped various gods, which the classic writers have identified with Roman gods. The mysteries of their religion are revealed only to the initiated. The mysteries served several purposes. Im- portant rites, symbols, and doctrines were most thoroughly learned, and their value most forcibly expressed and impressed upon the mind. The memory was greatly strengthened. A charm \\as thrown about religious exercises at once fas- cinating to the initiated and inviting to the un- initiated. The laity reverenced and feared the holy orders, and considered the priests the special favorites of the gods, and the divinely appointed means of communicating with heaven. It was considered unsafe to commit the highest relig- ious truths to the unlearned and the unworthy. They could not understand them ; they could not appreciate them. It were better for them to follow blindly the teachings of the priestly class. We may compare this system with the Eleu- sinian and the Samothracian mysteries. The transmigration of souls has its root in the belief in immortality. Therein is also rec- ognized the unity of life. Life in its essence is the same, whatever may be its transient habita- 308 DEPARTED GODS. tion. This lays the foundation of Pantheism. All life is a part of The Life. In this doctrine is also recognized moral desert. The differences which exist between individuals in the present life are the result of the earnings of previous lives. There are in this world unfitness and imperfection. Life is not what it ought to be not what it must be before there can be rest. Hence there are numerous lives in numerous bodies till there result fitness, perfection, and purity. We may compare the same doctrine as developed in Hinduism. The reasonableness of sacrifice and, indeed, of human sacrifice must have been very obvi- ous to primitive races, so widely did the custom extend in all lands. It is founded in this same principle of the unity of life, or, at least, in the unity of the source of life. All life is either of God in its essence, or is derived from him, and hence to him belongs. There is some portion of divine life in everything visible the largest portion in man. In sacrifice there is given back to God what is his own. The dearest possession, the most valuable sacrifice, is most acceptable to him as containing the most of his own divinity, and as carrying to him the most of the heart of the worshiper. Hence human sacrifices. Then, too, the gods must be propitiated, that they may THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 309 deal mercifully with the unworthy and the trans- gressor. Life alone can atone for sin life alone can ransom life. The human life offered to the gods was not destroyed ; it was saved ; it went to the gods. The victim, in being sacrificed, was sanctified, and became spotless and pure. Christ is the world's one great sacrifice the life given for life. And now acceptable sacrifice is a broken heart and a contrite spirit, which God will not despise. The plentiful harvest corresponding to abun- dance of murders can not be explained, unless the killing be considered as sacrificing to the gods in some sense, and hence a religious act. The unroofing and re-roofing of the temple of the Bacchantes may have some reference to sun- worship. In the ascribing of occult powers to certain objects, the Druids recognized the presence of in- visible forces, and an invisible spiritual realm. They also seemed to recognize the basal unity of force and law. Such occult powers were not always necessary to the existence of the object, for they might be lost if the priest were not careful in the observance of mystic ceremonies. Sometimes such powers were invited by prayers and invocations to make certain objects their home. Each object seemed to possess a spiritual 27 310 DEPARTED GODS. part. They sought to secure the friendship of these invisible powers, and to use them against their enemies, or to secure good fortune, or again to drive away disease. There might result fe- tishism; there might result magic. The associ- ation of ideas may be the key to the under- standing of occult science. " Man, as yet in a low intellectual condition, having come to associ- ate in thought those things which he found in experience to be connected in fact, proceeded er- roneously to invert this action, and to conclude that association in thought must involve similar connectidn in reality." * The reasoning was not wholly erroneous. There is some connection between all existences a connection which has its basis in the Supreme Mind; but it is not such a connection as magic demands. The Druids believed in the power of invocations, imprecations, incantations, and charms. Thus to will was to accomplish. The will is the supreme of man. Mind is the mon- arch of matter. Invisible agents go at the com- mand of will. Words themselves are deified as possessing inherent and wonderful powers. Thus starting from what is true, the end is false. There easily results divination or prophecy. *Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. I, p. 116. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 311 If the world and the creator be the same, or if the world be ruled by stern mechanical law, then could one particle of matter, or one action or at- tribute of mind, at any moment be perfectly known, all past, present, and future would be known. The future would be revealed to the man who could read aright. Again, the spirit which controls an animal, living or dying, may know the future and make it known to man. In either case there is an underlying unity of law. Man is connected with all existences. In recog- nition of the continuance of these relations after death, articles of ornament and usefulness are buried with the dead that they may not want in the next life. The gods of Gaul were assimilated with the gods of Rome, notably under the policy of Au- gustus. The result was that the name of the Gaulish god was treated more or less as a mere epithet to that of the Roman divinity. " Nay, the Roman god not unfrequently seized on the attributes of the native one even to the extent of assuming his Gaulish costume and non-classical appearance." Moreover, the cult of the Roman gods was introduced and established all over the country. The Gaulish divinities, in fine, were reduced in rank, but were not banished. We may identify in the inscriptions the Gal- 312 DEPARTED GODS. lie gods which have been assimilated to the Roman divinities which are named in the classics. An inscription found near Beaucroissant, at a place which was once called Artay, contains the name of the god Mercurius Artaius, who would seem to have been connected with agricul- ture, and especially with plowing. Another in- scription found at Hieres would connect this di- vinity with war or kingship. He had temples, most of which belonged to the god in his native character, in no less than twenty-six places in the territory of the Allobroges alone. Many names of places prove the wide extent of the worship of Mercury. He affected high places, for his temples were frequently situated in con- spicuous positions. The Greek artist Zenodorus made a colossal Mercury for the great temple of the Arverni on Puy de Dome. It was one hundred and twenty feet high, and was the work of ten years. * This god is also the discoverer of roads and paths. Ogmios was one of his principal Gallic names. Rhys quotes from Lucian as follows : " The Celts, he says, call Heracles in the lan- guage of their country Ogmios, and they make * Pliny, xxxiv, 18. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 313 very strange representations of the god. With them he is an extremely old man, with a b;il THE INSCRIP TIONS. 3 1 7 Ims-relief on a monument which is preserved in the Museum of Munich. She is clothed in a long dress, and resembles in general appearance the Gaulish divinities called mothers or matrons. With her right hand she holds up ears of corn, and in her left she has a bunch of fruit. On another face of the monument is represented Apollo Grannus. In his right hand he holds something like a plectrum, and in his left a very large lyre. It is not possible to determine what relation these divinities sustain to each other. We might take Sirona to be the wife of Apollo Grannus, but there is absolutely nothing to sug- gest their relation. Rhys thinks that the names Maponos and Magounus render such a supposi- tion inadmissible. He suggests that she may have been regarded as his mother. There are monuments in honor of herself alone, showing that she maintained an independent position. One of these monuments, with her bust in bas- relief, gives her the appearance of extreme old age.* The third epithet of the god is Toutiorix, which can mean nothing else than "king of the people" a name connected at several points with German mythology and history. Mars is the third god which Caesar mentions. Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, p. 27. 318 DEPARTED GODS. Among his epithets we find most prominently named Caturix, which may be interpreted "king of war lord of battles." As Mars Vintius he was god of the winds, but as god of the propi- tious winds he was assimilated with Pollux. He had many temples and altars along the Rhone. As Mars Camulos he was the god of the sky and of heaven, and corresponded with the Jupiter of the Latins. Many epithets prove him to have been the chief of the Celtic gods. He was " most kingly," and " king of the uni- verse," and his associate as on a monument at Bath was called Nemetona; and Nemon, ac- cording to Irish tradition, was the wife of Net, the war-god. Lucan speaks of the bloody rites of Teutates, Hesus, and Taranis, and describes a consecrated grove near Marseilles : "Aii old, inviolated, sacred Avood, Whose gloomy boughs, thick interwoven, made A chilly, cheerless, everlasting shade." This Teutates is found in an inscription in the form Toutates. According to Caesar, the Gauls, before engaging in battle, vowed to Mars the spoils of war, and presented in sacred places all the remainder of the booty, and few had the temerity to withhold any part of the spoils, so severe was the penalty inflicted. There are in the inscriptions Jupiter Bagin- THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 319 and Jupiter Sucellus, but we know not the meanings of these appellations. We have also Jupiter Turanus, " the thunderer," with whom we may compare the Norse Thor. Rhys makes Tanmis -remark the god of Lucan and the Irish Toranis feminine. The Hesus of Lucan is found as Esus, and in etymology, if not mythological bearing also, is connected with the older class of Norse divin- ities. Consulting the meaning of the root, and we will have "lord, the living one." "Now where the name JSsus occurs, it stands written over a figure of the god, which has been carefully studied by a distinguished French arch- aeologist, M. Robt. Mowat. He describes the bas-relief as representing the god clad in a short tunic, tucked round his waist so as not to im- pede the free action of the body. He brandishes a square, short-hafted ax, with which he is fell- ing or lopping a tree, the lance-like form of the leaves of which show it to be a willow, such as must have grown in abundance on the banks and islands of the Seine. M. Mowat classes this fig- ure with the bronze images and bas-reliefs of the god known by his Latin name as Silvanus. Other representations make him hold in one hand a branch which he has just cut off a tree with a woodman's bill, while a great many monuments 320 DEPARTED GODS. give him as his attributes a hammer and a gob- let; but in some instances the goblet is absent, while in others the hammer has smaller ham- mers growing as it were out of it in tree-like fashion a remarkable specimen of this kind has been discovered at Vienne. The goblet and hammer sometimes accompany dedications to Sil- vanus by name, but the variations are too numer- ous to be enumerated. One of the most remark- able is an altar at Lyons, which brings the hammer and the bill-hook together; it shows the god using a bill-hook with his right hand, and supporting himself with the other on a ham- mer with a long handle, while the goblet stands at his feet." * Csesar ascribes the initiation of the various trades and arts to Minerva. We find in the in- scriptions Minerva Balisama. Corresponding with the character which Csesar ascribes to Minerva, the Irish had a goddess Brigit poetess and seeress daughter of Dagda the Great; and she had two daughters, also called Brigit, one the patroness of the healing art, and the other of smith- work. The inscriptions furnish the Gaulish Brigands the probable counterpart of Brigit* An altar dug up in Paris contains a figure of *Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, pp. 64, 65. THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 321 the god Cernunnos. This may be the god Dis, who, according to Caesar, was father of the Gal- lic gods. An examination of the Paris altar shows that this name suits the god. There is the word Cernunnns, and underneath this name a divinity is represented. This figure is bearded and clothed. The forehead is adorned with the horns of a stag, from each of which hangs a tongue. Although the monument is in a bad state of preservation, the figure is so large in comparison with the others of the block as to show that the god could not have been repre- sented standing or even sitting on a seat. The only posture suited to the whole scene would be the cross-legged position characteristic of the Buddha. This connects the whole figure with certain sculptures representing squatting, horned divin- ities. One of these, found at Vendoeuvres-en- Brenne, represents the god with a fottis, or sack, in his lap. On either side of the god stand two genii of diminutive size. Their feet rest upon the coils of a serpent. Each grasps one of the horns of the central god. With the other hand one holds a torque and the other a purse. An adjoining face of the monument shows an Apollo Citharcedus. His posture is that illus- 322 DEPARTED GODS. trated by his colossal statue at Entrain, in the Nievre. On the Rheims monument the horned god is squatting on a seat between Apollo and Mercury, who are standing. The left arm of Cernunnos rests on his knee, and on this arm is held a bag. With his right hand he helps to pour from the bag a profusion of acorns or beech- nuts. An ox and a stag are also figured, and the nuts drop down between them. On the tym- panum of the pediment, above the head of the god, a rat has been carved. Since the rat is an animal which dwells underground, its representa- tion on the monument is thought to have sig- nificance. The block of saints displays two groups on opposite sides of the stone. In each case the squatting god holds in his right hand a torque, and in his left a bag or purse. The latter is sup- ported on his knee. The monument being imper- fect, the horns are wanting, yet the god is prob- ably Cernunnos. The goddess in the principal group, seated near him, holds a cornucopia, which rests on her left arm, while close to her stands another little female divinity. On' the opposite face of the block the god squats on a base, which has been ornamented with two bucraria. On a base to the left, ornamented with a bucraria, a naked THE CLASSICS AND THE INSCRIPTIONS. 323 god supports himself on a club. On the right, the base is without ornament. Thereon stands a goddess in a long robe. The squatting atti- tude of the god in all these figures is character- istic. The same attitude has been remarked in a bronze figure which was discovered in Autun, and is now preserved in the museum of Saint Germain ; also on one side of certain Gaulish coins there is a squatting figure, holding a torque in the right hand.* This deity, like Dis and Pluto, was the god of the dead and of the lower world, and the lord of riches. In some representations, Cernunnos has two other but smaller faces on either side, and sometimes three heads. It would seem to have been the custom of beginning each meal with the religious ceremony of offering a portion of the food to Dis. He seems to have had a companion, whose Irish name was Danu or Donu, who was the mother of the gods. Gallic cities were dedicated to presiding genii, the names of several of which have been pre- served. The worship of mother goddesses was widely extended, and affected especially by the poor. They are represented as three young women, clad in long robes and showing a benev- olent countenance. They are mostly in a sitting *Rhys, Hibbort Lectures, 1886, pp. 78-81. 324 DEPARTED GODS. posture, with fruit on their laps, and occasionally an infant on their knees. An altar in the Mu- seum of Vienne shows the mother with a basket of fruit on her lap, sitting, while her two sisters, with long robes which cover their heads, stand on either side. A monument, found at Metz, represents the three standing and holding in their hands fruit or flowers. There was also in Gaul the similar worship of holy virgins. The imagination peopled Celtic lands with a multitude of malevolent spirits, all kinds of gob- lins and ogresses, inspiring terror in the hearts of the humble worshipers. There is but one monument in recognition of these shadowy be- ings. It is found at Benwell, near Newcastle on Tyne, and is, briefly, " To the witches three." These minor divinities were local, and included the spirits of forests, streams, lakes, springs, and mountains. Remains of this lower Celtic wor- ship exist to-day in local seats, as we shall learn in the next chapter, while the greater and more noble gods are forgotten. The classic and archaeological remains har- monize with the mythology of the Celts wher- ever it is possible for us to make a fair compar- ison. Each assists to a correct understanding of the others, and yet the whole body of informa- tion is far from being what could be wished. IV. LITTLE PEOPLE. I^HE fairies occupy a prominent place in the modern mythology of Ireland. They were once angels, according to the popular belief, and formed a large part of the original population of heaven. When the rebellion headed by Satan drew away from their allegiance multitudes of warlike spirits, the fairies remained neutral. As a punishment they were banished from heaven, and condemned to dwell in the earth, yet cher- ishing the hope of final pardon and admission to their former celestial abodes. They dwell in large societies, labor on the co- operative plan, and own property in common. They are well-disposed, though capable of doing much harm. " Though, be nacher, they 're not the length av yer finger, they can make thim- selves the bigness ava tower whenitplazes thim, an*, av that ugliness that ye 'd faint wid the looks o' thim, as knowin' they can sthrike ye dead on the shpot, or change ye into a dog, or a pig, or a unicorn, or any other dirthy baste they plaze." Their bodies are quite ethereal in sub- stance, so that the light can easily shine through, 28 325 326 FAIRIES. LITTLE PEOPLE. 327 :in