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<bibl><author>Edwards, S. A.</author>, <title>A Hand-Book of Mythology for the Use of Schools and Academies, by S. A. Edwards, Teacher of Mythology in the Girl’s Normal School, Philadelphia</title>, <pubPlace>Philadelphia</pubPlace>, <publisher>Eldredge & Brother</publisher>, <date>1883</date>, <biblScope>VIII-253 p.</biblScope> Source : <ref target="https://books.google.fr/books?id=OE5EAQAAMAAJ">Internet</ref> <ref target="https://archive.org/details/handbookofmythol00edwa">Archive</ref>.</bibl>
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<div>
<head>Preface</head>
<p>The importance of a knowledge of mythology is felt by all readers, even of our daily papers and magazines, and it is indispensable to the enjoyment of art and literature. It assists us to understand many allusions in the <title>New Testament</title>, and by revealing to us the ceremonies and maxims of Paganism, it inspires us with new respect for the majesty of the Christian religion.</p>
<p>The early races expressed by their religious legends their opinions on the origin and destiny of man, their motives for the performance of what they considered duty, and their ground of hope for the hereafter.</p>
<p>It has been fully proved that mythology is simply a phase in the growth of language, the study of which has explained many things in mythology which hitherto appeared contradictory.</p>
<p>
<author key="Cox G. W.">Cox</author> says, “
<quote>The task of analyzing and comparing the myths of the Aryan nations has opened to me a source of unqualified delight. I feel bound to avow the conviction that it has done more. It has removed not a few perplexities, and has solved not a few difficulties which press hard on many thinkers. It has raised and strengthened my faith in the goodness of God, and has justified the wisdom which has chosen to educate mankind through impressions produced by the phenomena of the outside world.”</quote></p>
<p>In this little work advantage has been taken of modern research, and
<author key="Müller F. M.">Müller</author>,
<author key="Cox G. W.">Cox</author>,
<author key="Berens">Berens</author>,
<author key="Brinton">Brinton</author>,
<author key="Seemann">Seemann</author>,
<author key="Keightley">Keightley</author>,
<author key="Bulfinch Th.">Bulfinch</author>, and others have been consulted, and when quoted, proper credit has been given.</p>
<p>Accents have been marked, so that pupils will have no difficulty in pronouncing names.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>List of Subjects.</head>
<p>Introduction 9</p>
<p>Cosmogony and Theogony 18</p>
<p>The Titans and their Offspring 19</p>
<p>Uranus (The Heavens) 20</p>
<p>Nyx (The Night) 22</p>
<p>Helios (The Sun) 23</p>
<p>Eos (The Dawn) 26</p>
<p>Selene (The Moon) 27</p>
<p>Hecate 29</p>
<p>Chronos (Time) 31</p>
<p>Rhea (Ops) 34</p>
<p>Zeus (Jupiter) 36</p>
<p>Hera (Juno) 46</p>
<p>Poseidon (Neptune) 49</p>
<p>Aides, or Pluto 53</p>
<p>Mœræ (The Fates) 59</p>
<p>Erinnys (The Furies) 60</p>
<p>Demeter (Ceres) 63</p>
<p>Persephone (Proserpine) 68</p>
<p>Ares (Mars) 69</p>
<p>Pallas-Athene (Minerva) 72</p>
<p>Hestia (Vesta) 76</p>
<p>Hephæstus (Vulcan) 78</p>
<p>Aphrodite (Venus) 81</p>
<p>Horæ (The Seasons) 83</p>
<p>Charites (The Graces) 84</p>
<p>Eros (Cupid) 85</p>
<p>Hymenæus, or Hymen 88</p>
<p>Phœbus (Apollo) 88</p>
<p>Artemis (Diana) 95</p>
<p>Hermes (Mercury) 98</p>
<p>Dionysus (Bacchus) 102</p>
<p>Musæ (The Muses) 106</p>
<p>The Sirens 109</p>
<p>Pegasus 109</p>
<p>The Nymphs 110</p>
<p>Iris (The Rainbow) 112</p>
<p>Hebe (Juventas) 113</p>
<p>Nike (Victoria) 114</p>
<p>Ganymedes 114</p>
<p>Momus 115</p>
<p>Nemesis 115</p>
<p>Tyche 116</p>
<p>Janus 116</p>
<p>Flora 117</p>
<p>Pomona 118</p>
<p>Vertumnus 118</p>
<p>Terminus 118</p>
<p>Silvanus 118</p>
<p>Pales 119</p>
<p>Manes 119</p>
<p>Penates 119</p>
<p>Nereus 120</p>
<p>Proteus 120</p>
<p>Glaucus 120</p>
<p>Thaumas, Phorcys, and Ceto 121</p>
<p>The Winds 121</p>
<p>Pan 122</p>
<p>Silenus 124</p>
<p>The Satyrs 125</p>
<p>Priapus 125</p>
<p>Public Worship of the Ancient Greeks and Romans 126</p>
<p>The Creation and Primitive Condition of Mankind 132</p>
<p>Ages of the World 134</p>
<p>Deucalion and Pyrrha 135</p>
<p>Centaurs and Lapithæ 136</p>
<p>The Theban Legends 137</p>
<p>The Theban Wars 142</p>
<p>Perseus 145</p>
<p>Bellerophon 149</p>
<p>Heracles 151</p>
<p>Theseus 163</p>
<p>Calydonian Hunt 168</p>
<p>Atalanta 169</p>
<p>Dædalus and Icarus 169</p>
<p>The Argonautic Expedition 171</p>
<p>The Trojan War 177</p>
<p>The Return of the Greeks from Troy 189</p>
<p>Æneas 202</p>
<p>Personifications 207</p>
<p>Offices of the Deities 208</p>
<p>Greek Festivals 209</p>
<p>Roman Festivals 210</p>
<p>Egyptian Mythology 211</p>
<p>Assyrian Mythology 217</p>
<p>Persian Mythology 218</p>
<p>Hindu Mythology 220</p>
<p>Scandinavian Mythology 225</p>
<p>The Druids’ Mythology 230</p>
<p>American Mythology 234</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Introduction.</head>
<quote>
<p>“<hi rend="b">Mythology</hi> is a collection of tales, or legends, relating to the gods, heroes, demons, or other beings whose names have been preserved in popular belief.</p>
<p>“The gods, in almost every instance, were personifications of phenomena, or powers of Nature.</p>
<p>“Many ages ago, before any of the nations existed that now inhabit Europe, and while everything was new and strange to the people who then lived on the earth, men talked of the things which they saw and heard in a manner very different from our way of speaking now. We talk of the sun rising and setting as of something which is sure to happen; but they did not know enough to feel sure about these things, and so when the evening came they said, ‘Our friend, the sun, is dead; will he come back again?’ and when they saw him once more in the east, they rejoiced because he brought back their light and their life with him. Knowing but little about themselves and of the things which they saw in the world around them, they fancied that everything had the same kind of life which they had themselves. In this way they came to think that the sun and stars, the rivers and streams, could see, and feel, and think, and that they shone, or moved, of their own accord. Thus they spoke of everything as if it were alive, and instead of saying, as we do, that the morning comes before the sunrise, and that the evening twilight follows the sunset, they spoke of the sun as the lover of the dawn, or morning, who went before him, as longing to overtake her, and as killing her with his bright rays which shone like spears.</p>
<p>“We talk of the clouds which scud along the sky, but they spoke of the cows of the sun, which the children of the morning drove every day to their pastures in the blue fields of heaven. So, too, when the sun set, they said that the dawn with its soft and tender light had come to soothe her son, or her husband, in his dying hour.</p>
<p>“In the same way, the sun was the child of darkness, and in the morning he wove for his bride in the heavens a fairy net-work of clouds, which re-appeared when she came back to him in the evening.</p>
<p>“When the sun shone with a pleasant warmth, they spoke of him as the friend of men; when his scorching heat brought a drought, they said that the sun was slaying his children, or that someone else, who knew not how to guide them, was driving the horses of his chariot through the sky. As they looked on the dark clouds which rested on the earth without giving any rain, they said that the terrible being whom they named the snake or dragon was shutting up the waters in a prison-house. When the thunder rolled, they said that this hateful monster was uttering his hard riddles; and when, at last, the rain burst forth, they said that the bright sun had slain his enemy, and brought a stream of life for the thirsting earth.</p>
<p>“Now, so long as men remained in the same place, there was no fear that the words which they spoke would be misunderstood; but as time went on they scattered, and it came to pass that they kept the names which they had given to the sun, the clouds, and all other things when their original meaning had been quite forgotten. Thus, mythology, as we call it now, is simply a collection of the sayings by which men once described whatever they saw and heard in the countries where they lived. This key which has unlocked almost all the secrets of mythology was given us by Professor Max Müller, who has done more than all other writers to bring out the exquisite and touching poetry that underlies these ancient legends.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“Language has been called ‘a map of the science and manners of the people who speak it.’ Philology, or the study of language, has assisted students of mythology in two ways; first, by tracing the names of objects of worship to their root-forms, and thus showing their meaning and revealing the thought that lay at the root of the worship. Secondly, by proving the identity between gods of different nations whose names, apparently different, have been resolved into the same root-word, or to a root of the same meaning.</p>
<p>“Philology has enabled us to read the primitive thoughts of mankind. A large number of the names of Greek gods and heroes have no meaning in the Greek language, but their names occur in Sanskrit with plain, physical meanings.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Fiske"><hi rend="i">Fiske</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“When the Hindu talked of ‘Father Dyaus,’ or the ‘sleek kine of Siva,’ he thought of the personified sky and clouds. But the Greek, in whose language these physical meanings were lost, had long before the Homeric epoch come to regard Zeus, Hermes, Athene, etc., as mere persons; and in most cases the originals of the Hindu myths were completely forgotten.</p>
<p>“One chief result arrived at by the comparison of creeds, and by unraveling the meaning of the names of ancient gods and heroes, is the discovery that a worship of different aspects and forces of nature lies at the foundation of all mythologies, and that the cause of the resemblance between the stories told of the gods and heroes is that they are in reality only slightly different ways of describing natural appearances according to the effect produced on different minds.</p>
<p>“The essence of all Paganism is a recognition of the forces of Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal Agencies, as gods and demons.</p>
<p>“The close resemblance which runs through the legends of different lands leads us to the conclusion that all these legends have a common source, namely, the words or phrases used by the most ancient tribes in speaking of the things which they saw, heard, or felt in the world around them.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W.">Cox</author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“The study of mythology is a benefit because, by revealing to us the absurd ceremonies and impious maxims of Paganism, it may inspire us with new respect for the majesty of the Christian religion, and for the sanctity of its morals.</p>
<p>“It also enables us to understand the works of various authors as well as paintings, coins, statues, etc.</p>
<p>“The great mass of the Grecian people appear to have believed that their divinities were real persons, but their philosophers explained the legends concerning them as allegorical representations of general physical and moral truths. The Greeks worshiped the powers of Nature personified.</p>
<p>“Every heathen conception of deity in which we are likely to be interested has three distinct characters: —</p>
<p>“<hi rend="i">I. It has a physical character.</hi> It represents some of the great powers, or objects of Nature, — the sun, the moon, the heavens, the winds, or the sea. The fables first related about each deity represent, figuratively, the action of the natural power which it represents; such as the rising and setting of the sun, the tides of the sea, and so on.</p>
<p>“<hi rend="i">II. It has an ethical character</hi>, and represents in its history the moral dealings of God with man. Thus, Apollo is, first, physically the sun contending with darkness, but, morally, the power of divine life contending with corruption. Athene is physically the light of daybreak, morally the breathing of the divine spirit of wisdom. Poseidon*<note place="bottom">[NdE] L’astérisque indique les mots accentués dans le texte. Voir la table des noms accentués.</note> is physically the sea; morally, the supreme power of passion.</p>
<p>“<hi rend="i">III. It has a personal character</hi>, and is realized in the minds of its worshipers as a living spirit with whom men may speak face to face as a man speaks with his friend.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Ruskin"><hi rend="i">Ruskin</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The Greek poets believed the earth to be flat and circular, their own country occupying the middle of it, the central point being either Mt. Olympus, the abode of the gods, or Delphi, so famous for its oracle.</p>
<p>The circular disk of the earth was crossed from west to east, and divided into two equal parts by the <hi rend="i">Sea</hi> as they called the Mediterranean, and its continuation the Euxine.</p>
<p>Around the earth flowed the <hi rend="i">River Ocean</hi>, its course being from south to north on the western side of the earth, and in a contrary direction on the eastern side. It flowed in a steady, equable current, unvexed by storm or tempest. The sea, and all the rivers on earth, received their waters from it.</p>
<p>The northern portion of the earth was supposed to be inhabited by a happy race named the Hyperboreans*, dwelling in everlasting bliss and spring beyond the lofty mountains, whose caverns were supposed to send forth the piercing blasts of the north wind, which chilled the people of Hellas, Greece.</p>
<p>Their country was inaccessible by land or sea. They lived exempt from disease or old age, from toils and warfare.
<author key="Moore Th.">Moore</author> has given us the “<title>Song of the Hyperborean</title>,” beginning, —</p>
<quote>
<l>“I come from a land in the sun-bright deep,</l>
<l>Where golden gardens glow;</l>
<l>Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep,</l>
<l>Their conch-shells never blow.”</l>
</quote>
<p>On the south side of the earth, close to the stream of Ocean, dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named the Æthiopians. The gods favored them so highly, that they were wont to leave at times their Olympian abodes, and go to share their sacrifices and banquets.</p>
<p>On the western margin of the earth, by the stream of Ocean, lay a happy place named the Elysian Plain, whither mortals favored by the gods were transported, without suffering death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss. This happy region was also called the “Fortunate Fields,” and the “Isles of the Blessed.”</p>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_014.png"/>
</figure>
<p>We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean. Their imagination peopled the western portion of this sea with giants, monsters, and enchantresses; while they placed around the disk of the earth nations enjoying the peculiar favor of the gods, and blessed with happiness and longevity.</p>
<p>The Dawn, the Sun, and the Moon were supposed to rise out of the Ocean, and to drive through the air, giving light to gods and men. The stars also, except those forming Charles’s Wain, or Bear, rose out of and sunk into the stream of Ocean. There the sun-god embarked in a winged boat, which conveyed him round by the northern part of the earth, back to his place of rising in the east.
<author key="Milton">Milton</author> alludes to this in his “<title>Comus</title>.”</p>
<quote>
<l>“Now the gilded car of day</l>
<l>His golden axle doth allay</l>
<l>In the steep Atlantic stream,</l>
<l>And the slope Sun his upward beam</l>
<l>Shoots against the dusky pole,</l>
<l>Pacing towards the other goal</l>
<l>Of his chamber in the east.”</l>
</quote>
<quote><p>“The ancient Greeks believed their gods to be of the same shape and form as themselves, but of far greater beauty, strength, and dignity. They also regarded them as being of much larger size than men, for in those times great size was esteemed a perfection both in man and woman, and consequently was supposed to be an attribute of their divinities, to whom they ascribed all perfections. A fluid named <hi rend="i">Ichor</hi> supplied the place of blood in the veins of the gods. They were not capable of death, but they might be wounded or otherwise injured. They could make themselves visible or invisible to men as they pleased, and assume the forms of men or of animals as it suited their fancy. Like men, they stood in daily need of food and sleep. The food of the gods was called Ambrosia, their drink Nectar. The gods when they came among men often partook of their food and hospitality.</p>
<p>“Like mankind, the gods were divided into two sexes, — namely, gods and goddesses. They married and had children, just as mortals do. To make the resemblance between gods and men more complete, the Greeks ascribed to their deities all human passions, both good and evil. They were capable of love, friendship, gratitude; of envy, jealousy, and revenge.</p>
<p>“The abode of the gods, as described by the more ancient Grecian poets, such as
<author key="Homère">Homer</author>* and
<author key="Hésiode">Hesiod</author>*, was on the summit of the snow-clad mountains of Olympus, in Thessaly. A gate of clouds, kept by the goddesses named Horæ* (the seasons), unfolded its valves to permit the passage of the Celestials to the earth, and to receive them on their return. The gods had their separate dwellings; but all, when summoned, repaired to the palace of Zeus, as did also those deities whose usual abode was the earth, the waters, or the under-world. It was also in the great hall of the palace of the Olympian king that the gods feasted each day on ambrosia and nectar, the latter being handed around by the lovely goddess Hebe*. Here they conversed of the affairs of heaven and earth; and, as they quaffed their nectar, Apollo, the god of music, delighted them with the tones of his lyre, to which the Muses sung in responsive strains.</p>
<p>“The following lines from the <title>Odyssey</title> will show how
<author key="Homère">Homer</author> conceived of Olympus: —</p></quote>
<quote>
<l>‘So saying, Minerva, goddess azure-eyed,</l>
<l>Rose to Olympus, the reputed seat</l>
<l>Eternal of the gods, which never storms</l>
<l>Disturb, rains drench, or snow invades, but calm</l>
<l>The expanse and cloudless shines with purest day;</l>
<l>There the inhabitants divine rejoice</l>
<l>Forever’</l>
<bibl>
<author key="Cowper"><hi rend="i">Cowper</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“Such were the abodes of the gods as the Greeks conceived them. The Romans, before they knew the Greek poetry, seem to have had no definite imagination of such an assembly of gods. But the Roman and Etruscan races were by no means irreligious. They venerated their departed ancestors, and in each family the worship of these ancestors was an important duty. Their images were kept in a sacred place, and each family observed, at fixed times, memorial rites in their honor, and for these and other religious observances the family hearth was consecrated.</p>
<p>“When the Greeks first settled in Italy, they found there a mythology belonging to the Celtic inhabitants, which, according to the Greek custom of paying reverence to all gods, known or unknown, they readily adopted, selecting and appropriating those divinities which had the greatest affinity to their own; and thus they formed a religious belief which naturally bore the impress of its ancient Greek source. As the primitive Celts, however, were a less civilized people than the Greeks, their mythology was of a more barbarous character, and this circumstance, combined with the fact that the Romans were not gifted with the vivid imagination of their Greek neighbors, leaves its mark on the Roman mythology, which is far less fertile in fanciful conceits, and deficient in all those fairy-like stories and wonderfully poetic ideas which so strongly characterize that of the Greeks.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Bulfinch Th."><hi rend="i">Bulfinch</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
</div>
<div>
<head>Cosmogony and Theogony.</head>
<p>By <hi rend="b">Cosmogony</hi> is meant the legends relating to the creation of the world; by <hi rend="b">Theogony</hi>, the legends relating to the origin of the gods.</p>
<p>An ancient Greek legend represents the world as having been formed from Chaos, which was regarded as a heterogeneous mass containing all the seeds of nature. According to the same legend, Gæa*, or Ge (the earth) first issued, in no very comprehensible manner, from Chaos, whereupon Tartarus (the abyss beneath the earth) immediately opened itself, and Eros* (the love that combines all things in pairs) sprung into existence.</p>
<p>Erebus* (Darkness) and Nyx* (Night) were the children of Chaos, and the parents of Hemera* (the day) and Æther* (the air).</p>
<p>In mythology, <hi rend="i">effects</hi> are called children.</p>
<p>Gæa then brought forth Uranus* (the heavens), Pontus* (the sea), and Oure* (the mountains).</p>
<p><hi rend="b">The Race of Uranus.</hi> — The children of Uranus, according to
<author key="Hésiode">Hesiod</author>, were the Titans, the Cyclopes*, and the Hecatoncheires*. There were twelve Titans: six males, Chronos*, Oceanus*, Cœus*, Crius*, Hyperion*, and Iapetus*; and six females, Thea*, Rhea*, Themis*, Mnemosyne*, Phœbe*, and Tethys*. The interpretation of these divinities is somewhat difficult, but they doubtless represented the elementary forces of nature.</p>
<p>The Cyclopes were three in number, Brontes* (thunder), Steropes* (forked-lightning), Arges* (sheet-lightning): these we can clearly see refer to the phenomena of the storm.</p>
<p>The Hecatoncheires (Centimani*, or Hundred-handed) were Briareus* (hurricane), Gyges* (earthquake), and Cottus* (volcano).</p>
<p><hi rend="b">The Race of Pontus*.</hi> — By Pontus, Gæa became the mother of the fabulous sea-deities — Nereus*, Thaumas*, Phorcys*, Ceto*, and Eurybia*. Nereus represents the sea in its quiet state. Thaumas represents the majesty of the sea. He is the father of Iris* (the rainbow) and of the Harpies (storm-winds). Phorcys and Ceto, from whose union the frightful Gorgons* and Grææ* proceeded, typify the dangers and terrors of the sea.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>The Titans and their Offspring.</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Oceanus* and Tethys*.</hi> — By making Oceanus the offspring of Uranus and Gæa, the ancients merely assert that the ocean is produced by the combined influence of heaven and earth; while, at the same time, their fervid and poetical imaginations led them to see in this, as in all manifestations of the powers of nature, an actual, tangible divinity.</p>
<p>Oceanus espoused his sister Tethys. Their offspring were the rivers of the earth, and three thousand daughters named Oceanides*, or Ocean-nymphs.</p>
<p>The abode of Oceanus was a grotto-palace beneath the stream of Ocean. It is not always easy to distinguish the god from the stream over which he rules.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Cœus* and Phœbe*.</hi> — The offspring of this pair were Leto* and Asteria*. Leto was the mother of Apollo* and Artemis*.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Crius*.</hi> — This Titan is said to be the sire of Astræus*, Pallas, and Perses. Astræus was the father of the Winds and Stars. Pallas and Styx* (the ocean-nymph) were the parents of Envy, Victory, Strength, and Force. Perses married Asteria. Hecate* was their daughter.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Hyperion</hi>* and <hi rend="b">Thea</hi> were the parents of Helios (the Sun), Selene* (the Moon), and Eos* (the Dawn).</p>
<p>The most important of all the Titans, however, are Chronos and Rhea, who pave the way for the universal dominion of their son Zeus.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Uranus* (The Heavens)</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_020.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Uranus*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Cœlum*; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Varuna*.</p>
<p>The sun, moon, and stars were emblems of Uranus or Cœlum. He is represented clothed with a starred mantle, his hands uplifted, pointing to the moon and stars.</p>
<p>Uranus was believed to have united himself in marriage with Gæa, the earth; and reflection will show what a truly poetical, and also what a logical idea this was; for, taken in a figurative sense, this union actually does exist. The smiles of heaven produce the flowers of earth; whereas his long-continued frowns exercise so depressing an influence upon his loving partner, that she no longer decks herself in bright and festive robes, but responds with ready sympathy to his melancholy mood.</p>
<ab type="ornament">* * *</ab>
<p><hi rend="b">Gæa</hi>, as earth-goddess, was a personification of productive earth, whether through fertile soil or through moisture.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Gæa*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Tellus <hi rend="i">or</hi> Terra; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Prithivi; Samothrace*, Great Goddess. She was also called Titania*.</p>
<p>Uranus, fearing that his turbulent offspring, the Hecatoncheires and Cyclopes, might one day seize his power, buried them in Tartarus directly after their birth. This displeased Gæa, their mother, who thereupon prompted the Titans to conspire against their father, and induced Chronos, the youngest and bravest of them, to lay violent hands on Uranus.</p>
<p>Uranus was mutilated, and from the drops of blood which fell upon the earth sprung Gigantes* (Giants) and Meliæ* (Melian Nymphs). From what fell into the sea sprung Aphrodite* (Venus).</p>
<p>Uranus cursed Chronos, and prophesied that he would suffer a similar fate at the hands of his own son.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Nyx* (The Night).</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_022.png"/>
</figure>
<p>Nyx was the daughter of Chaos, and sister of Erebus, to whom she bore Hemera and Æther. She is said then to have produced without a sire Mœræ* (Parcæ*, or Fates), Thanatos* (Death), Hypnos* (Sleep), Oneiros* (Dreams), Momus (Laughter), Cocytos* (Woe), Nemesis* (Vengeance), Eris* (Strife), the Hesperides*, and several other deities.</p>
<p>It is a principle of all cosmogony that darkness preceded light, which sprung from it; a truth here expressed by making Night the parent of Day and Æther.</p>
<p>Nyx, with her two sons, Thanatos and Hypnos, dwelt in a cave which
<author key="Hésiode">Hesiod</author> places in the west,
<quote>“behind where Atlas supports the heavens.”</quote> Hemera shared this abode, and she and Nyx rode forth alternately to minister to the world.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>1. A female form, with or without wings, clothed in black drapery, and having a starry veil, riding in a chariot drawn by black steeds, and accompanied by the stars.</p>
<p>2. With starry veil floating in the air, coming towards the earth as if to extinguish a flaming torch which she carries in her hand.</p>
<p>3. A floating figure, clothed in a long, black robe, carrying m her arms Thanatos and Hypnos. Death is draped in black, and holds an inverted torch; while Sleep is robed in white, and has for his symbol the poppy.</p>
<p>4. Sitting beneath a tree, distributing poppies to Morpheus* and his brothers. Morpheus, the god of dreams, receives the poppies, while his brothers bend to gather the falling leaves.</p>
<p>Sacrifices offered to Nyx were black sheep. A cock was offered to her. because that bird announces the coming of Hemera even in the presence of Nyx.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Helios* (The Sun).</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Helios*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Sol*; <hi rend="i">Persian</hi>, Mithras* or Mithra*; <hi rend="i">Chaldean</hi>, Baal* or Bel*; <hi rend="i">Canaanite</hi>, Moloch*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Ra*, Osiris*, Horus*, Pthah*.</p>
<p>The office of Helios was to give light to men and gods during the day. He is described as rising every morning in the east, preceded by his sister Eos, who, with her rosy fingers, paints the tips of the mountains, and draws aside the misty veil through which her brother is about to appear. When he has burst forth in all the glorious light of day, Eos disappears, and Helios drives his flame-darting chariot along the accustomed track. This chariot, which is of burnished gold, is drawn by four fire-breathing steeds, behind which the young god stands erect with flashing eyes, his head surrounded with rays, holding in one hand the reins of those fiery coursers which in all hands save his are unmanageable. When towards evening he descends the curve in order to cool his burning forehead in the waters of the sea, he is followed closely by his sister Selene, who is now prepared to take charge of the world and illumine the dusky night.</p>
<p>
<author key="Homère">Homer</author> and
<author key="Hésiode">Hesiod</author> give no explanation of the manner in which Helios reaches the east in the morning after having disappeared in the west. In later times poets invented the fiction that when Helios had finished his daily course, a winged boat, or cup, which had been made for him by Hephæstus* (Vulcan), conveyed him, with his glorious equipage, to the east, where he recommenced his bright career.</p>
<p>Helios, as the god whose eye surveys all things, was invoked as a witness to solemn oaths.</p>
<p>Sun-worship was one of the first and most natural forms of idolatry. The island of Rhodes was sacred to Helios. Here was erected his celebrated colossal statue. He was represented on coins of the Rhodians by the head of a young man crowned with rays.</p>
<p>Sacrifices offered to Helios were honey, lambs, goats, white rams, and white horses.</p>
<p>From the Egyptian name Horus those parts into which the sun divides the day are called horse or hours.</p>
<p>Helios and the ocean-nymph Clymene* had a son named Phaethon*. The claims of this youth to a celestial origin being disputed by Epaphus*, son of Zeus and Io*, he journeyed to the palace of his sire, from whom he extracted an unwary oath that he would grant him whatever he asked. The ambitious youth instantly demanded permission to guide the solar chariot for one day, to prove himself thereby the undoubted progeny of the Sun-god. Helios, aware of the consequences, remonstrated, but to no purpose. The youth persisted, and the god, bound by his oath, reluctantly committed the reins to his hands, warning him of the dangers of the road, and instructing him how to avoid them.</p>
<p>Phaethon grasped the reins, the flame-breathing steeds sprung forward, but, soon aware of the feeble hand that guided them, they ran out of their course, the world was set on fire, and a total conflagration would have ensued, had not Zeus, at the prayer of Earth, launched his thunder, and hurled the terrified driver from his seat. He fell into the river Eridanus* (Po). His sisters, the Heliades*, as they lamented his fate, were turned into poplar-trees on its banks, and their tears, which still continued to flow, became amber as they dropped into the stream. Cycnus*, the friend of the ill-fated Phaethon, also abandoned himself to mourning, and at length was changed into a swan.</p>
<p>“One who cannot guide the fiery horses sits in the chariot of the sun.” So ran the phrase which, scarcely disguised in the myth of Phaethon, rose naturally to the lips of men when all herbage was scorched and withered in times of drought.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Clytie</hi>* was a water-nymph, and in love with the Sun-god, who made her no return. She pined away, nine days she sat on the ground and tasted neither food nor drink. She gazed on the sun when he rose, and as he passed through his daily course to his setting; she saw no other object, her face turned constantly on him. At last, it is said, her limbs rooted in the ground, her face became a sun-flower, which turns on its stem so as always to face the sun throughout its daily course.</p>
<p>The sun-flower is a favorite emblem of constancy.
<author key="Moore Th.">Moore</author> uses it:</p>
<quote>
<l>“The heart that has truly loved never forgets,</l>
<l> But as truly loves on to the close;</l>
<l>As the sun-flower turns on her god when he sets</l>
<l> The same look that she turned when he rose.”</l>
</quote>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets</hi> applied to Helios by the poets were, mortal-delighting; mortal-illumining; unwearied.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Eos* (The Dawn).</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_026.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Eos*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Aurora*; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Sarunya*.</p>
<p>Eos, the goddess of the dawn, was daughter of Hyperion and Thea, and a sister of Helios and Selene. She was first married to Astræus, by whom she became the mother of the winds — Boreas* (north), Zephyrus* (west), Eurus* (east), and Notus (south). This is a mythological way of intimating the fact that the wind generally rises at dawn. She was also mother of Eosphorus* (dawn-bearer) and of the Stars of Heaven. She afterwards became united to Tithonus*, son of Laomedon*, king of Troy. Eos obtained for him from Zeus* the gift of immortality, forgetting, however, to add to it that of eternal youth. When Tithonus grew old, and lost the beauty which had won her admiration, Eos became disgusted with his infirmities, and at last shut him up in a chamber, where soon little else was left of him but his voice. Eos, pitying his unhappy condition, exerted her divine power, and changed him into a grasshopper.</p>
<p>Memnon, king of Ethiopia, celebrated in the story of the Trojan war, was a son of Eos and Tithonus. He came to the assistance of Troy, and was slain by Achilles*. Since then Eos has wept without ceasing for her darling son, and her tears fall to the earth as dew.</p>
<p>Eos had her own chariot, which she drove across the vast horizon both morning and night, before and after the sun-god. Hence she is a personification not merely of the rosy morn, but also of twilight. She is described by the poets as a beautiful maiden with rosy arms and fingers; she bears a star on her forehead and a torch in her hand. Wrapping around her the rich folds of her violet-tinged mantle, she leaves her couch before the break of day and yokes her two horses, Lampetus* and Phaethon, to her glorious chariot. She then hastens with cheerfulness to open the gates of heaven, in order to herald the approach of her brother, whilst the tender plants and flowers, reviving by the morning dew, lift up their heads to welcome her as she passes.</p>
<p>The Greeks explained the death of u youth by saying that Eos loved him, and had carried him into immortal life.</p>
<p>The views and fables connected with Eos were transferred by the Roman writers to the person of their goddess Aurora without alteration.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets</hi> given to Eos, or Aurora, were rose-fingered, rose-armed, yellow-robed, gold-seated, well-seated, well-tressed, snow-footed, fair-lighting, mortal-illumining, much-seeing, air-born.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Selene* (The Moon).</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Selene*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Luna*.</p>
<p>Selene, daughter of Hyperion and Thea, represented the moon. The name signifies wanderer among the stars. She was supposed to drive her chariot across the sky whilst her brother Helios was reposing after the toils of the day. When the shades of evening began to enfold the earth, the two milk-white steeds of Selene rose out of the mysterious depths of Oceanus. Seated in a silvery chariot, and accompanied by her daughter Hersa*, the goddess of the dew, appeared the mild and gentle queen of the night, with a crescent on her fair brow, a gauzy veil flowing behind, and a lighted torch in her hand.</p>
<p>It was supposed that magicians and enchanters, particularly those of Thessaly, had an uncontrollable power over the moon, and that they could draw her down from heaven at pleasure by the mere force of their incantations. Her eclipses, according to their opinion, proceeded thence, and, on that account, it was customary to beat drums and cymbals to render the power of magic less effectual.</p>
<p>It was said that Selene was enamored of Endymion*, on whom Zeus had bestowed the gift of perpetual youth, but united with perpetual sleep, and that she descended to gaze on him every night on the summit of Mount Latmos*, the place of his repose.</p>
<p>The name Endymion denotes the sudden plunge of the sun into the sea. Endymion represents the tired sun hurrying to his rest, and dead to the love which is lavished upon him. The original meaning of Endymion being once forgotten, what was told originally of the setting sun was now told of a name which, in order to have any meaning, had to be changed into a god or a hero. The setting sun once slept in the Latmian cave, the cave of night — “Latmos” being derived from the same root as “Leto,” “Latona” the night; but now he sleeps on Mount Latmos, in Caria*. Endymion, sinking into sleep, was once the setting sun. In the ancient poetical language of Greece, people said “Selene loves and watches Endymion,” instead of “it is getting late;” “Selene embraces Endymion,” instead of “the sun is setting and the moon is rising;” “Selene kisses Endymion into sleep,” instead of “it is night.”</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>1. On coins by the bust of a fair young woman with a crescent on her head.</p>
<p>2. Clothed in a long robe, and a veil which covers the back of the head. Sometimes on her brow a crescent; at others, horns.</p>
<p>3. Scenes illustrating the story of Endymion.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hecate*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_029.png"/>
</figure>
<p>Hecate was originally a moon-goddess worshiped by the Thracians*. She was the daughter of Perses* and Asteria, and her sway extended over earth, heaven, and the lower regions, for which reason she was invoked as the “triple goddess.” Hecate represented the moon in her invisible phases, and it was thought that when she was absent from the earth she was in the lower world.</p>
<p>As operating in the heavens, Hecate is identified with Selene; in her influence on the earth, with Artemis* (Diana*), and as having power in the lower world, with Persephone* (Proserpine*). She was believed to wander by night over the earth, seen only by the dogs, whose barking announced her approach.</p>
<p>Her statues, which were dog-headed, were set up at Athens and elsewhere, in the market-places and at crossroads. She was believed to preside over witchcraft and enchantment, and to haunt sepulchres, the point where two roads cross, and lonely spots where murders had been committed. She was supposed to be connected with the appearance of ghosts and spectres, to possess unlimited influence over the powers of the lower world, and to be able to lay to rest unearthly apparitions by her magic spells and incantations.</p>
<p>Hecate’s favor was propitiated by offerings of black female lambs, dogs, eggs, libations of milk, and honey. Festivals were held at night, by torchlight.</p>
<p>At the time of the new moon, the wealthy sent suppers to be placed before her statues, which the poor would then come and eat. This was called the “Supper of Hecate,” and the offering was made that she might prevent the souls of the dead from appearing.</p>
<p>Artemis represents the moonlight splendor of night; Hecate, its darkness and terrors.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>1. As a woman having the head of a woman, or of a dog, or of a horse.</p>
<p>2. As a woman having two faces.</p>
<p>3. As a woman having three bodies, partly distinct and partly united, having three distinct faces united at the neck; such a figure was called “Triformis.”</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Chronos* (Time).</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Chronos*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Saturn*; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Dyu; <hi rend="i">Phœnician</hi>, Moloch*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Seb.</p>
<p>Chronos was the god of time. He married Rhea, a daughter of Uranus and Gæa. Their children were three sons: Aides* or Pluto, Poseidon (Neptune), Zeus (Jupiter), and three daughters: Hestia (Vesta), Demeter* (Ceres), and Hera (Juno).</p>
<p>Chronos, having an uneasy conscience, was afraid that his children might one day rise up against his authority, and thus verify the prediction of his father, Uranus. In order, therefore, to render the prophecy impossible of fulfilment, Chronos swallowed each child as soon as it was born, greatly to the sorrow and indignation of his wife Rhea. When Zeus was born, she, by the advice of Uranus and Gæa, wrapped a stone in swaddling-clothes, and Chronos, in eager haste, swallowed it, without noticing the deception. Zeus was reared by the Nymphs in a cavern of Crete. Under their watchful care he throve rapidly, developing great physical powers, combined with extraordinary wisdom and intelligence. Grown to manhood, he determined to compel his father to restore his brothers and sisters to the light of day. He espoused Metis* (Prudence), who artfully persuaded Chronos to drink a potion, which caused him to give back the children he had swallowed. The stone which had counterfeited Zeus was placed at Delphi, where it was long exhibited as a sacred relic.</p>
<p>Chronos was so enraged at being circumvented that war between the father and son became inevitable. Zeus, with his brothers and sisters, took his stand on Mount Olympus, where he was joined by Oceanus, Themis, Mnemosyne, and Hyperion, who had forsaken Chronos on account of his oppressions. Chronos and his brother Titans took possession of Mount Othrys*, and prepared for battle. The struggle was fierce and lasted ten years. Zeus called to his aid the Cyclopes and Hecatoncheires. The former brought tremendous thunderbolts, which the latter, with their hundred hands, hurled down upon the enemy, at the same time raising mighty earthquakes. Victory smiled upon Zeus. Chronos and his army were completely overthrown, his brothers despatched to the gloomy depths of the lower world, and Chronos himself was banished from his kingdom and deprived forever of the supreme power, which now became vested in his son Zeus. This war was called the Titanomachia*. The whole myth of the overthrow of Chronos and the triumph of Zeus covers long transition periods of earth’s history.</p>
<p>With the defeat of Chronos and his banishment from his dominions, his career as a ruling Greek divinity entirely ceases. But being, like all the gods, immortal, he was supposed to be still in existence, though possessing no longer either influence or authority.</p>
<p>The Romans, according to their custom of identifying their deities with those of the Greek gods whose attributes were similar to their own, declared Chronos to be identical with Saturn. They believed that after his defeat in the Titanomachia, and his banishment from his dominions by Zeus, Chronos took refuge with Janus, king of Italy, who received the exiled deity with great kindness, and even shared his throne with him. Their united reign became so thoroughly peaceful and happy, and was distinguished by such uninterrupted prosperity, that it was called the “Golden Age.”</p>
<p>A temple in honor of Saturn was erected at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, in which were deposited the public treasury and the laws of the State.</p>
<p>Greek festivals in honor of Chronos were called Chronia*.</p>
<p>The Roman festival in his honor was called “Saturnalia,” of which the Carnival is a survival. The Saturnalia was devoted to freedom, mirth, and indiscriminate hospitality.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>1. On monuments, bound with cords of wool. There was a legend that Chronos was thus bound by Zeus to prevent irregularity in the movements of the heavenly bodies.</p>
<p>2. With wings (swiftness), feet of wool (noiseless), leaning on a scythe.</p>
<p>3. With an hour-glass and scythe.</p>
<p>4. Receiving a stone from Rhea.</p>
<p>5. Bust with serene countenance, full beard, back of head veiled.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Significations.</head>
<p>Chronos chained by Zeus signified the revolution of the seasons chained to the course of the stars to prevent too immoderate speed.</p>
<p>A sickle as emblem of Chronos meant god of harvests, or decaying life, or rebellion against Uranus. A serpent meant renewed life of the year. A serpent with its tail in its mouth meant the year. A scythe meant the god of death.</p>
<p>A globe encircled by a starry zodiac meant the ordainer of systematic celestial movements.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Rhea*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_034.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Rhea; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Ops*; <hi rend="i">Phrygian</hi>, Cybele*.</p>
<p>Rhea, the wife of Chronos and mother of Zeus and the other great gods of Olympus, like Gæa, personified the earth, and was regarded as the Great Mother, and unceasing producer of all plant-life. She was also believed to exercise unbounded sway over the animal creation, more especially over the lion.</p>
<p>The priests of Rhea were called Curetes* and Corybantes*. Her worship was always of a riotous character. At her festivals, which took place at night, the wildest music of flutes, cymbals, and drums resounded, whilst joyful shouts and cries, accompanied by dancing and loud stamping of feet, filled the air.</p>
<p>The principal seat of her worship was at Crete, into which place this divinity was introduced by its first colonists from Phrygia*, in Asia Minor, in which country she was worshiped under the name of Cybele. The people of Crete adored her as the Great Mother, more especially as the sustainer of the vegetable world. Seeing, however, that year by year, as winter appears, all her glory vanishes, her flowers fade, and her trees become leafless, they poetically expressed this process of nature under the figure of a lost love. She was said to have been tenderly attached to a youth of remarkable beauty named Atys*, who, to her grief and indignation, proved faithless to her. He was about to wed Sagaris*, daughter of the king of Pessinus, in Phrygia. In the midst of the wedding feast, Rhea suddenly appeared. A panic seized the assembled guests, and Atys, becoming frantic, rushed to the mountains and destroyed himself. He was turned into a pine-tree, into which his soul passed, while from his blood sprung a wreath of violets.</p>
<p>In April of each year, the Corybantes crowned a pine-tree and covered it with a veil of Cybele. They marched to the mountains, and to music of fifes and drums they rushed through the woods with frantic cries, searching for Atys. When he — an image of him — was found, the priests grew frenzied with joy and cut themselves with knives.</p>
<p>Rhea was called Idæa* Mater (Idæan Mother), from Mount Ida, on the island of Crete.</p>
<p>In Rome, the Greek Rhea was identified with Ops, the wife of Saturn. She was called Magna Mater, also Dindymene*. This latter title she acquired from three high mountains in Phrygia, whence she was brought to Rome as Cybele during the second Punic war, <hi rend="sc">b. c.</hi> 205, in obedience to an injunction contained in the <title>Sibylline books</title>. She was represented as a matron crowned with towers, seated in a chariot drawn by lions.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Zeus*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_036.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Zeus*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Jove <hi rend="i">or</hi> Jupiter; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Dyaus.</p>
<p>Zeus, the son of Chronos and Rhea, when born, was concealed by his mother in a cave of Mount Ida, in Crete. A goat called Amalthea* provided him with milk; nymphs called Melissæ fed him with honey, and eagles and doves brought him nectar and ambrosia. The Curetes, or priests of Rhea, by beating their shields together, kept up a constant noise, which drowned the cries of the child and frightened away all intruders.</p>
<p>Zeus and his brothers having gained a complete victory over their enemies, settled by lot that Zeus should reign in Heaven, Aïdes in the Lower World, and Poseidon should have command over the Sea. The supremacy of Zeus was recognized in all three kingdoms. Earth and Olympus were common property. This new order of things was by no means securely established. The resentment of Gæa led her to produce the giant Typhœus*, a monster with a hundred fire-breathing dragons’ heads, whom she sent to overthrow the dominion of Zeus. A great battle took place, which shook heaven and earth. Zeus, by means of his never-failing thunderbolts, at length overcame the monster, and buried him beneath Mount Ætna*, in Sicily*, whence at times he still breathes out fire and flames towards heaven.</p>
<p>The Gigantes are said to have sprung from the drops of blood which fell on the earth from the mutilated Uranus. From the plains of Phlegra*, in Thessaly*, they sought to storm Olympus by piling Pelion* upon Ossa*. After a fierce battle, in which all the gods took part, they were conquered, and sent to share the fate of the vanquished Titans. The dominion of Zeus was now securely established, and no hostile attack ever after disturbed the peaceful ease of the inhabitants of Olympus.</p>
<p>To Zeus all the aërial phenomena, such as the thunder and lightning, the wind, the clouds, the snow, and the rainbow, are ascribed, and he sends them either as signs and warnings, or to punish the transgressions of men. Zeus is called the “father of gods and men;” his power over both is represented as supreme. In his palace on Olympus, Zeus was supposed to live after the fashion of a Grecian prince in the midst of his family.</p>
<p>Zeus was the earliest national god of the Greeks. His worship extended throughout the whole of Greece, though some of his shrines had a special importance. The most ancient of them was that of Dodona*, where the Pelasgian* Zeus was worshiped at a time prior to the existence of any temple in Greece. Mountain-tops were the earliest seats of his worship. He was represented in the celebrated form of the sacred oak, in the rustling of whose branches the deity revealed himself to the faithful. Later, near the temple at Dodona were two columns. On one was a brazen vase, on the other the figure of a child holding a whip with three brass chains, each chain having a knot at the end. The constant winds of Dodona caused these chains to frequently strike the brazen vase, and upon the longer or shorter duration of the sounds the priestess based her predictions.</p>
<p>But all the earlier shrines were overshadowed by the great national seat of the worship of Hellenic* Zeus at Olympia*, on the northern bank of the river Alpheus*, in Elis*, where the renowned Olympian games were celebrated. The magnificent statue of Zeus, by
<author key="Phidias">Phidias</author>*, was an additional inducement to devotees, who flocked thither from every quarter. The Olympic games tended to the promotion of physical beauty and strength, the cultivation of heroic poetry, and the deepening of fraternal feeling. Rewards were crowns of olive leaves. Sacrifices offered were bulls and rams, accompanied with offerings of frankincense, wheat, and honey, with libations of wine.</p>
<p>The worship of Jupiter was no less extensive in Italy. The most renowned of all his shrines was undoubtedly the temple erected by Tarquin* on the Capitol at Rome. This, after being nearly destroyed by fire in the time of Sulla, was restored to more than its pristine splendor. The original earthen image was replaced by a statue of gold and ivory, the work of the Greek artist
<author key="Apollonios de Rhodes">Apollonius</author>*, after the model of the Olympian Zeus.</p>
<p>Capitolini Ludi* were games yearly celebrated at Rome in honor of Jupiter, who was believed to have preserved the Capitol from the Gauls. The Capitol was the temple of Jupiter at Rome.</p>
<p>The earliest wife of Zeus was Metis*, a daughter of Oceanus. Zeus devoured her, fearing that she should beget a son, who would deprive him of the empire it had cost him so much to attain. Soon after this, feeling violent pains in his head, he sent for Hephæstus* (Vulcan), and ordered him to open it with an axe. His command was obeyed, and forth sprung Pallas Athene* (Minerva), fully armed. His second goddess-wife was Themis*, who was the mother of the Horæ* (Seasons) and Mœræ* (Fates). Dione* appears as the wife of Zeus of Dodona, and the mother of Aphrodite* (Venus), while Arcadian Zeus was wedded to Maia*, whose son was Hermes* (Mercury). Persephone* (Proserpine) was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter* (Ceres). Zeus and Eurynome* were the parents of the Charites* (Graces); Zeus and Mnemosyne*, of the Muses; Zeus and Leto* (Latona), of Apollo and Artemis* (Diana). Hera* (Juno) was recognized as his only legitimate queen. She was the mother of Ares* (Mars), Hephæstus* (Vulcan), and Hebe*.</p>
<p>In the union of Zeus with most of his immortal wives, we shall find that an allegorical meaning is conveyed. His marriage with Metis represents supreme power allied to wisdom and prudence. His union with Themis typifies the bond which exists between divine majesty and justice, law and order. Eurynome supplied the refining and harmonizing influences of grace and beauty, whilst his marriage with Mnemosyne typifies the union of genius with memory.</p>
<p>The celebrated hero Heracles* (Hercules) was the son of Zeus and Alcmena*.</p>
<p>Antiope*, daughter of Nycteus*, and niece of Lycus*, king of Thebes, was surprised by Jupiter in the form of a satyr. Dreading the anger of her father, she fled to Sicyon*, where she married Epopeus*. Nycteus put an end to his life, charging his brother Lycus to take vengeance on Antiope and her husband. Soon afterwards Lycus slew Epopeus, and led Antiope back a captive to Thebes. Her infant sons were exposed on the mountains, where they were found by a shepherd, who reared them, and named one Zethus*, the other Amphion*. Antiope, who was treated with great cruelty by Dirce*, the wife of Lycus, fled for protection to her sons when they were grown up. They attacked and slew Lycus, and, tying Dirce by the hair to a wild bull, let him drag her till she expired.<note place="bottom">The punishment of Dirce is the subject of a celebrated group of statuary now in the Museum at Naples, known as the Farnese Bull.</note></p>
<p>Amphion, having become king of Thebes, fortified the city with a wall. It is said that when he played on his lyre, the stones moved of their own accord, and took their places in the wall.</p>
<p>In sculpture, Amphion is always represented with a lyre; Zethus, with a club.</p>
<p>Leda*, whose affections Zeus gained under the form of a swan, was the mother of four children — two mortal and two immortal. They were Castor* and Pollux*, called Dioscuri* (sons of Zeus), and Helen and Clytemnestra*, who were celebrated in connection with the Trojan war.</p>
<p>Castor was represented as a mortal, and the son of Tyndareus*, and Pollux as immortal, and the son of Zeus. After Castor had fallen in the contest with the sons of Aphareus*, his brother Pollux, unwilling to part from him, prevailed on Zeus to allow them to remain together, on condition of their spending one day in Olympus and the next in Hades*. They thus led a life divided between mortality and immortality.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The interpretation of this myth is somewhat difficult. It is commonly supposed that they were ancient Peloponnesian divinities of light, who, after the Dorian invasion, were degraded to the rank of heroes. They are often interpreted as personifications of the morning and evening star, or of the twilight (dawn and dusk). They were venerated not only in their native Sparta, but throughout the whole of Greece, as kindly, beneficent deities, whose aid might be invoked either in battle or in the dangers of shipwreck. In this latter character they are lauded by an <title>Homeric hymn</title>, in which they are represented as darting through the air on their golden wings, in order to calm the storm at the prayer of the terror-stricken mariner. It has been remarked that these Dioscuri flitting about on their golden wings are probably nothing more than what is commonly called St. Elmo’s fire — an electric flame which is often seen playing round the tops of the masts during a storm, and which is regarded by sailors as a sign of its speedy abatement.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Europa* was the beautiful daughter of Agenor* (king of Phœnicia) and Telephassa*. She was one day gathering flowers with her companions in a meadow near the sea-shore, when Zeus, charmed with her great beauty, and wishing to win her love, transformed himself into a beautiful white bull, and quietly approached the princess. Surprised at the gentleness of the animal, and admiring its beauty, she caressed it, crowned it with flowers, and at last playfully seated herself on its back. The disguised god bounded away with his lovely burden, and swam across the sea with her to the island of Crete.</p>
<p>Europa was the mother of Minos*, Rhadamanthus*, and Sarpedon*. The first two became judges in the lower world after death.</p>
<quote>
<p>“Europa is the morning with its broad-spreading light, born in the Phœnician, or purple land of the dawn. She is the child of Telephassa, — the being who shines from afar. But she is soon taken from her beautiful home. In Hindu myths, the bull Indra shatters the car of Daphne*; in the Greek tale, the bull carries Europa over seas and mountains, journeying always, like the sun, from east to west. The Dawn has been taken from the sky, but her mother follows her, until at length she sinks to sleep in the Thessalian plain in the evening, just as the pale and tender light which precedes the sun’s rising re-appears only to die out in the western heavens at eventide.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Zeus and Ægina* were the parents of Æacus*, so renowned for his justice that he was made one of the judges in the lower world.</p>
<p>Io*, daughter of the river-god Inachus, was a priestess of Hera. Her great beauty attracted the notice of Zeus. On remarking this, Hera, in her jealousy, changed lo into a white heifer, and set the hundred-eyed Argus* to watch her. When asleep, he closed only two eyes at a time. Hermes*, however, by the command of Zeus, succeeded in putting all his eyes to sleep with the sound of his magic lyre, and then, taking advantage of his helpless condition, slew him. It is related that Hera placed his eyes on the tail of the peacock. Hera avenged herself by sending a gadfly to torment lo, who, in her madness, wandered through Europe and Asia, until she at length found rest in Egypt, where, touched by the hand of Zeus, she recovered her original form and gave birth to a son, who was called Epaphus*. He afterwards became king of Egypt, and built Memphis.</p>
<quote>
<p>“This myth has received many embellishments, for the wanderings of lo became more extensive with the growth of geographical knowledge. Bosphorus (cow-bearer) received its name from this story. Io (the wanderer) is the moon, whose apparently irregular course and temporary disappearance were considered a curious phenomenon by the ancients. The moon-goddess of antiquity was very frequently represented under the figure of a heifer; and Isis herself, the Egyptian goddess of the moon, was always depicted with horns. The guardian of the heifer, the hundred-eyed Argus, is a symbol of the starry heaven. Argus was slain by Hermes, the rain-god; in other words, the stars were rendered invisible by the thick clouds. There is nothing extraordinary in representing the apparent irregularity of the moon’s course, inexplicable as it was to the ancients, under the guise of mental disorder. In the south-east — the direction in which Egypt lay from Greece — Io again appears as the full moon, in her original shape.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Callisto*, the daughter of Lycaon*, king of Arcadia, was a huntress in the train of Artemis, devoted to the pleasures of the chase, who had made a vow never to marry, but Zeus, under the form of the huntress-goddess, succeeded in gaining her affections. Artemis drove the guiltless offender from her society. Callisto was mother of a son named Arcas*. Hera being extremely jealous changed her into a bear. Her son, when he grew up, meeting her in the woods, was about to kill her, when Zeus, transporting both mother and son to the skies, made them the constellations of the two bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Hera induced Oceanus and Tethys to forbid them from coming into their waters, and consequently the two constellations of the Great and Little Bears move round and round in heaven, but never sink, as the other stars seem to do, beneath the ocean.</p>
<p>Prometheus, in
<author key="Lowell">Lowell</author>’s poem, says:</p>
<quote>
<l>“One after one the stars have risen and set,</l>
<l>Sparkling upon the hoar-frost of my chain;</l>
<l>The Bear, that prowled all night about the fold</l>
<l>Of the North Star, hath shrunk into his den.</l>
<l>Scared by the blithesome footsteps of the dawn.”</l>
</quote>
<p>The Greeks supposed that Zeus occasionally assumed a human form, and descended from his celestial abode, in order to visit mankind and observe their proceedings. On one occasion he made a journey through Arcadia. Being recognized by the Arcadians as king of heaven, he was received by them with becoming respect and veneration; but Lycaon*, their king, doubted the divinity of Zeus. He invited him to dinner, and served up for him a dish of human flesh, in order to test the god’s omniscience. But Zeus was not to be deceived, and the impious monarch received the punishment which his crime merited. He was transformed into a wolf, and his house was destroyed by lightning.</p>
<p>Zeus and Hermes once came in the evening to a village, where they sought hospitality, but nowhere did they receive welcome till they reached the cottage of an old man and his wife, called Philemon* and Baucis*, who entertained them as well as their humble means would allow. The gods revealed their rank, and desired the aged couple to accompany them to the summit of a neighboring hill. On looking down towards their village, they saw nothing but a lake, with their cottage standing on its side. As they gazed, it became a temple. Zeus asked the worthy pair to name any wish they particularly desired, and it should be granted. They accordingly begged that they might serve the gods in the temple below, and end life together. Their wish was granted; and one day, as they were standing before the temple, they were transformed into trees, remaining forever side by side.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Zeus is generally represented as sitting upon a golden or ivory throne, holding in one hand thunderbolts just ready to be hurled, and in the other a sceptre of cypress. His looks express majesty, his beard flows long, and an eagle stands with expanded wings at his feet. He generally appears with the upper part of his body nude, and the lower part carefully covered, as if to show that he is visible to the gods above, but that he is concealed from the sight of the inhabitants of earth.</p>
<p>At Lacedæmon*, or Sparta, he was represented with four heads, that he might seem to hear with greater readiness the different prayers which were daily offered to him from every part of the earth.</p>
<p>The Cretans* represented Zeus without ears, to signify that the sovereign master of the world ought not to give partial ear to any particular person, but be equally propitious to all.</p>
<p>At Argos*, there was an ancient wooden statue of Zeus which had a third eye in its forehead. The three eyes were indicative of the dominion of Zeus over heaven, earth, and the underworld.</p>
<p>As Jupiter Ammon*, he is represented as having the horns of a ram. The temple of Libyan* Jove was called, together with the surrounding country, Hammonia, and the temple was known to antiquity as the temple of Jupiter Hammon*. Siwah still bears the ruins of the oracle and shrine to which it owes its fame. Not only the surrounding countries of Africa, but the Italians and Greeks paid to this oracle a deference and respect unsurpassed by the veneration with which they consulted the oracular deities of Dodona and Delphi. Even in the fifth century of our era, it was not unusual to anticipate the Fates by consultation of the Libyan Jove.</p>
<p>The most singular representation is that exhibiting Jupiter Pluvialis*, designed to commemorate his interposition in sending rain on a certain occasion.</p>
<p>Pluvius was a surname of Jupiter as god of rain. He was invoked by that name among the Romans whenever the earth was parched by continual heat.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hera*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_046.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Hera*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Juno*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Sati*.</p>
<p>Hera, daughter of Chronos and Rhea, was believed to have been educated by Oceanus and Tethys. She seems, originally, to have personified the air (the lower aërial regions), but among the Greeks this natural signification seems to have quickly disappeared, and she was chiefly honored as the guardian of the marriage-tie.</p>
<p>The marriage of Zeus and Hera typified the union of heaven and earth in the fertilizing showers. It was called “the sacred marriage,” and every living being was invited. The nymph, Chelone*, not only refused to attend, but indulged in raillery. Hermes was sent in search of her, and found her in her house, which was upon the bank of a river. He threw the nymph into the river, and transformed her into a tortoise, which was condemned to carry its house upon its back; as a punishment for raillery, perpetual silence was enjoined upon her.</p>
<p>Gæa presented to Hera a tree laden with golden apples. It was placed under the charge of the Hesperides at the foot of Mount Atlas.</p>
<p>On the first day of every month a ewe-lamb and a sow were sacrificed to Hera. The hawk, goose, and peacock were sacred to her. Her favorite flowers were the dittany, poppy, and lily. Her most famous temples were at Olympia, Argos, and Samos*.</p>
<p>The Dædala* and Tonea* were Greek festivals in honor of Hera. The “Little Dædala” was celebrated every seven years, and the “Great Dædala” every sixty years.</p>
<p>The Tonea was a solemnity observed at Samos. It was usual to carry Hera’s statue to the sea-shore, to offer cakes before it, and afterwards to replace it in the temple. This was in commemoration of the theft of the Tyrrhenians*, who attempted to carry away the statue of the goddess, but were detained in the harbor by an invisible force.</p>
<p>Hera was jealous in the highest degree, and, to stop her complaints, Zeus often had recourse to violence. He punished her cruelties towards Heracles by suspending her from the heavens by a golden chain, and hanging anvils to her feet. Hephæstus attempted to release her, for which Zeus threw him out of heaven, and his leg was broken by the fall.</p>
<p>Hera was the mother of Ares, Hephæstus, Hebe, and Ilithyia*.</p>
<p>Hera resented with great severity any infringement on her rights as queen of heaven, or any apparent slight on her personal appearance.</p>
<p>At the marriage of Peleus* and Thetis*, all the deities were present except Eris*. Indignant at not being invited, she determined to cause dissension, and threw into the midst of the guests a golden apple, with the inscription on it “For the Fairest.” The claims of all others were obliged to yield to those of Hera, Pallas Athene, and Aphrodite, and the decision was left to Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, who, ignorant of his noble birth, was at that time feeding flocks on Mount Ida. Hermes conducted the rival beauties to the young shepherd. Hera promised Paris extensive dominions if he would award the prize to her; Athené promised fame in war; Aphrodite promised the fairest of women. The queen of beauty was awarded the apple, and Paris<note place="bottom">Read
<author key="Tennyson A.">Tennyson</author>’s “<title>Œnone</title>.”</note> soon afterwards carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus*, King of Sparta. Hera was so indignant that she persecuted not only him, but all the family of Priam, whose dreadful sufferings and misfortunes during the Trojan war were attributed to her influence.</p>
<p>At one time Hera, being deeply offended with Zeus, determined to separate herself from him, and she accordingly took up her abode in Eubœa. Zeus effected a reconciliation by artifice. Cithæron*, King of Platea*, advised him to dress an image in bridal attire, place it in a chariot, and announce that this was Platea, his future wife. Hera, incensed at the idea of a rival, flew in great anger to meet the procession, and seizing the supposed bride, she furiously dragged off her nuptial attire. Her delight on discovering the deception was so great that a reconciliation took place, and committing the image to the flames, with joyful laughter she seated herself in its place and returned to Olympus.</p>
<p>It is probable that this story was invented to explain the ceremonies of the Dædala.</p>
<p>Juno, the Roman divinity, supposed to be identical with the Greek Hera, differed from her in important characteristics. Hera invariably appears as the haughty, unbending queen of heaven; Juno is revered and beloved as the type of a matron. Juno was believed to watch over and guard the life of every woman from her birth to her death.</p>
<p>On the first of March, a grand annual festival called the Matronalia* was celebrated in her honor by all the married women of Rome.</p>
<p>Moneta*, the adviser, was a surname of Juno, in whose temple at Rome money was coined.</p>
<p>The Roman consuls, when they entered upon office, were always obliged to offer to Juno a solemn sacrifice.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Hera is usually represented seated on a throne, a diadem on her head, and a golden sceptre in her right hand. Some peacocks generally sit by her, and a cuckoo often perches on her sceptre.</p>
<p>She is sometimes represented as carried through the air in a rich chariot drawn by peacocks.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Ox-eyed, white-armed, gold-seated, gold-shod.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Poseidon*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_049.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Poseidon*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Neptune; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Varuna*.</p>
<p>Poseidon was a son of Chronos and Rhea. He was god of the sea, as having under his control the forces that affect its movements rather than as himself inhabiting its waters. Nereus* was believed to live in the deep waters, and he stood in the same relation to Poseidon which Helios, who was believed to dwell in the sun, bore to Phœbus Apollo, the lord of light.</p>
<p>In addition to his residence on Olympus, Poseidon had a splendid palace beneath the sea at Ægæ*, in Eubœa, where he kept his horses with golden manes and brazen hoofs. Like the element over which he presided, he was described by the poets as being at times quiet and composed, and at others as disturbed and angry. He was said to be haughty, powerful, vindictive and impatient. He was believed to be able to cause earthquakes at his pleasure, and to raise islands from the bottom of the sea with a blow of his trident.</p>
<p>Mariners always invoked and propitiated Poseidon by a libation before a voyage was undertaken, and sacrifices and thanksgivings were gratefully offered to him after a safe and prosperous voyage.</p>
<p>As the deity having special control over commerce, Poseidon was held in great reverence by the Phœnicians. He was the presiding deity over fishermen, and was on that account more particularly revered in countries bordering on the sea-coast, where fish naturally formed a staple commodity of trade. He was supposed to vent his displeasure by sending disastrous inundations, which completely destroyed whole countries, and were usually accompanied by terrible marine monsters, which devoured those whom the floods had spared. It is probable that these sea-monsters are the poetical figures which represent the demons of hunger and famine necessarily accompanying a general inundation.</p>
<p>In honor of Poseidon, the Greeks maintained the Isthmian Games, or Isthmia. This festival was celebrated on the isthmus of Corinth in April or May of each alternate year. The games consisted of athletic sports, also contests in music and poetry. The prizes were garlands of pine leaves or of ivy. The sacrifices offered were black bulls, rams, and boars. The gall of victims was also offered. The bodies were thrown into the sea.</p>
<p>The wife of Poseidon was Amphitrite*. Their children were Triton, Rhoda, and Benthesicyme*. Triton was his father’s trumpeter; Rhoda married the Sun-god. The island of Rhodes was named for her.</p>
<p>The Cyclops Polyphemus* was son of Poseidon and Thoosa*. The sea-god was the father of two giant sons called Otus* and Ephialtes*. When only nine years old, they attempted to scale heaven by piling mighty mountains one upon another. They had succeeded in placing Mount Ossa* on Pelion*, when this impious project was frustrated by Apollo, who destroyed them with his arrows.</p>
<p>Arion* was a horse, the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter*, which had the power of speech, the feet on the right side like those of a man, and the rest of the body like a horse.</p>
<p>The favorite animal of Poseidon was the horse, which he was supposed to have created. This may, perhaps, be due to the fact that the imagination of the Greeks pictured the horses of Poseidon in the rolling and bounding waves. In Athens, the origin of the horse was referred to the contest between Athené and Poseidon. They both claimed the right to name the city which Cecrops* had built. The dispute was settled by an assembly of the gods, who decided that the one who presented mankind with the most useful gift, should have the privilege of naming the city. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident, and the horse sprung forth. From the spot which Athené touched with her wand issued the olive-tree. The gods unanimously awarded to her the victory, declaring her gift to be the emblem of peace and plenty, whilst that of Poseidon was the symbol of war and bloodshed. Athené called the city Athens. Poseidon tamed the horse for the use of mankind. In Arcadia he was worshiped under the name of Hippios*.</p>
<p>As a punishment for joining with Hera and Athené in a conspiracy to dethrone Zeus, he was deprived of his dominion over the sea for one year. It was during this time that, in conjunction with Apollo, he built for Laomedon* the walls of Troy. Because Laomedon refused to pay for the work, Poseidon favored the Greeks in the Trojan war.</p>
<p>Poseidon disputed with Apollo his right to the isthmus of Corinth. Briareus*, the Cyclops, who was mutually chosen umpire, gave the isthmus to Poseidon, and the promontory to Apollo. The contests between Poseidon and other deities merely signify the encroachments of the sea upon the land.</p>
<p>The Romans invested Neptune with all the attributes which belong to the Greek Poseidon. The Roman commanders never undertook am naval expedition without propitiating Neptune by a sacrifice.</p>
<p>His temple at Rome was in the Campus Martius, and the festival commemorated in his honor was the Neptunalia, or Consualia. Horses were led through the streets finely equipped and crowned with garlands, and all horses were allowed to rest from labor during this festival.</p>
<p>Consus* was the name of Neptune as god of counsel. His altar was underground. Counsel should generally be given privately, therefore Consus was worshiped in obscure and private places.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Sometimes he stands upright on a large shell, holding his trident, and arrayed in a mantle of blue or of sea-green. Often he is sitting in a chariot, or a shell with wheels, drawn by hippocampi. He is sometimes accompanied by Amphitrite. His image is very frequent on coins and medals. He is described as having black hair and blue eyes, and a serene and majestic aspect.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Earth-holding, earth-shaking, dark-haired, wide-ruling, loud-sounding.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Aïdes*, or Pluto</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_053.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Aïdes*, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Pluto; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Orcus*, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Dis; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Osiris*, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Serapis*; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Yama*.</p>
<p>Aides (Hades) was a son of Chronos and Rhea. The name Aides signifies dark, gloomy, melancholy, and invisible. The term Hades at a later time denoted the unseen world beneath the earth. When it was said that the dead had gone to Hades, all that was literally meant was that they had gone to the unseen place.</p>
<p>The Greek name Pluton, or Pluto, as well as the Latin name Dis, signifies wealth, because our wealth comes from the lowest parts of the earth.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The early Greeks regarded Aides as their greatest foe, and
<author key="Homère">Homer</author> tells us that he was ‘of all the gods the most detested,’ being in their eyes the grim robber who stole from them their nearest and dearest, and eventually deprived each of them of his share in the terrestrial existence.</p>
<p>“This conception was subsequently supplanted by one of a less dismal nature, in which the other side of his character is brought into prominence. From this point of view he is represented not only as sending nourishment to plants from the deep bosom of the earth, but also as offering unbounded riches to mankind in the shape of precious metals, which lie in his subterraneous passages and chambers.</p>
<p>“But though the original dismal conception of this deity as the inexorable god of death was much diminished in course of time, yet Hades, nevertheless, always conveyed to the Greek mind an idea of something mysterious and grim. He can, in fact, scarcely be said to have had a place in the public worship of the Greeks.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“In the Homeric age it was supposed that when a mortal ceased to exist, his spirit tenanted the shadowy outline of the human form it had quitted. These shades, as they were called, were driven by Aides into his dominions, where they passed their time in brooding over the vicissitudes of fortune which they had experienced on earth, or in regretting the lost pleasures they had enjoyed in life, but all in a state of semi-consciousness, from which the intellect could be roused to full activity only by drinking of the blood of the sacrifices offered to their shades by living friends.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Berens"><hi rend="i">Berens</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The narcissus, maiden-hair fern, and cypress were sacred to Aides. He had temples erected to his honor at Olympia, Athens, and in Elis. His sacrifices, which took place at night, consisted of black sheep, and the blood, instead of being sprinkled on the altars or received in vessels as at other sacrifices, was permitted to run into the ground. The officiating priests wore black robes, and were crowned with cypress.</p>
<p>It was said that at the close of the Titan war the Cyclopes made for Pluto a helmet which rendered the wearer invisible.</p>
<p>The Romans supposed that there was in the centre of the earth a vast, gloomy, and impenetrably dark cavity called Orcus, which formed a place of eternal rest for the dead. But with the introduction of Greek mythology, the Roman Orcus became the Greek Hades, and all the Greek ideas with regard to a future state then prevailed with the Romans, who worshiped Aides under the name of Pluto, his other appellations being Dis (from dives, rich) and Orcus, from the dominions over which he ruled. He had no temple in Rome, but, in common with Proserpina*, he had a subterranean altar in the Campus Martius, which was uncovered and used once a year. Only black animals were sacrificed to him.</p>
<p>The Feralia* was a festival in honor of the dead, held in February, accompanied with a solemn expiation or purification of the city. This expiation was called “februatio,” whence the name of the month. It continued from the eighteenth to the end of the month, during which time presents were carried to the graves of deceased friends and relatives, the living held feasts of love and reconciliation, and the temples of the gods were closed.</p>
<p>Erebus* was a general term comprehending the palace and domain of Pluto, also Tartarus*, a place of imprisonment.</p>
<p>The souls of those who had lived a virtuous life were sent to the Elysian Fields.
<author key="Homère">Homer</author> locates them in the “Isles of the Blessed” in the ocean.</p>
<p>Later poets mention various entrances to Hades; the most celebrated was in Italy, near Lake Avernus, over which it was said no bird could fly, so noxious were its exhalations.</p>
<p>Old Age, Disease, and Hunger — avengers of guilt — were supposed to dwell in caves near the entrance of Hades.</p>
<p>Field of Asphodel* was a place where spirits waited for those whose fate had not been decided.</p>
<p>In the dominions of Aides were several rivers — Acheron* (grief), Cocytus* (lamentation), Lethe* (oblivion), Pyriphlegethon* (fire-flaming), and Styx* (dread). The last was said to encompass these realms nine times, and could be crossed only by the aid of Charon*, the ferryman, a grim, unshaven old man. He took only those whose bodies had received funereal<note place="bottom">The Romans, like the Greeks, attached great importance to the interment of their dead, as they believed that the spirit of an unburied body was forced to wander for a hundred years. Hence, it was deemed a religious duty to scatter earth over any corpse found uncovered by the wayside, a handful of dust being sufficient to appease the god of the lower world. If the body of a friend could not be found, as in shipwreck, an empty tomb was erected, over which the usual rites were performed.</note> rites on earth, and who had brought with them the indispensable toll, which was a small coin (obolus), usually placed under the tongue of a dead person for that purpose.</p>
<p>All the shades were obliged to appear before Minos, the supreme judge, whose tribunal was guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus*,<note place="bottom">Cerberus, in Greek, meant originally the dark one, — the dog of night watching the path to the lower world.</note> which, with his three necks bristling with snakes, lay at full length on the ground. He permitted all shades to enter, but none to return.</p>
<p>The guilty souls, after leaving the presence of Minos, were conducted to the great judgment-hall of Hades, whose massive walls of solid adamant were surrounded by the river Phlegethon, the waves of which rolled flames of fire, and lit up, with their lurid glare, these awful realms. In the interior sat the judge, Rhadamanthus*, who declared to each comer the precise torments which awaited him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners were then seized by the Furies, who scourged them with their whips, and dragged them along to the great gate which closed the opening to Tartarus, into whose awful depths they were hurled, to suffer endless torture. Tartarus was supposed to be as far below Hades as the earth is distant from the skies.</p>
<p>The waters of the Lethe* had the power of producing utter forgetfulness of former events. According to the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, it was supposed that, after the shades had inhabited Elysium* for a thousand years, they were destined to animate other bodies on earth, and before leaving Elysium they drank of the river Lethe, in order that they might enter upon their new career without any remembrance of the past.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Aides, or Pluto, is generally represented holding a two-pronged sceptre. He sometimes has keys in his hand, to intimate that whoever enters his kingdom cannot return.</p>
<p>Sometimes he is represented sitting on a throne with Persephone*. His head is veiled, and he holds a sceptre.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Subterranean-Zeus, people-collecting, much-receiving, gate-keeping, laughterless, horse-renowned, invisible, strong, hateful, cold.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>[Sisyphus*. Ixion*. Tantalus*.]</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_058.png"/>
</figure>
<p>The punishments of great criminals in the infernal regions were a fruitful theme for the imagination of the poets. The most celebrated criminals were Tityus*, Tantalus*, Sisyphus*, Phlegyas*, Ixion*, and the Danaides*. The punishment of Tityus, who had offered violence to Leto*, consisted in having an enormous vulture prey without ceasing upon his liver, Tantalus had been deemed worthy to hold intercourse with the gods, until he put their omniscience to the test by setting before them the flesh of his son Pelops*. This crime he was condemned to expiate by the torments of continual hunger and thirst. Above his head were suspended the most beautiful fruits, but when he attempted to snatch them, a gust of wind blew them beyond his reach. At his feet gushed a fountain of purest water, but when he tried to quench his thirst, it suddenly vanished into the ground. Sisyphus, King of Corinth, was condemned, in consequence of his numerous crimes, to roll a huge stone up a high mountain, which, on reaching the top, always rolls down again to the plain.</p>
<quote>
<l> “Not in Hades alone</l>
<l>Doth Sisyphus roll, ever frustrate, the stone,</l>
<l>Do the Danaids ply, ever vainly, the sieve.</l>
<l>Tasks as futile does earth to its denizens give.”</l>
<bibl>
<author key="Lucille"><hi rend="i">Lucille</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Phlegyas, to avenge an injury received from Apollo, burned the temple of that god at Delphi. He was placed where a stone hanging over his head, and evermore threatening to fall, kept him in a perpetual state of terror.</p>
<p>Ixion, a not less insolent offender, was bound hand and foot to an ever-revolving wheel.</p>
<p>The Danaides, who, at their father’s command, had slain their husbands on their wedding-night, were condemned to pour water continually into a cask full of holes, which could never be filled.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The story of Tantalus means that the sun, when he glared too fiercely, killed the fruits which his warmth was ripening, and dried up the streams over which he passed.</p>
<p>“The stone of Sisyphus is an emblem of the indestructibility of hope. It symbolizes the sun, which, daily after reaching the highest point, seems to drop down again.</p>
<p>“Ixion means the sun at mid-day, whose four-spoked wheel, in the words of
<author key="Pindare">Pindar</author>, is seen whirling in the heavens.</p>
<p>“Sieve of the Danaides, or perforated cask, means the rainy sky.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
</div>
<div>
<head>Mœræ*.</head>
<p>The Fates were called Mœræ* in Greek and Parcæ* in Latin. Either term signifies <hi rend="i">a share</hi>, in the sense of allotting to every man his share. Some mythologists call them the daughters of Nyx, others of Zeus and Themis. They were three in number — Clotho*, Lachesis*, and Atropos*. To them was intrusted the management of the thread of life. Clotho drew the thread, Lachesis turned the wheel, and Atropos cut the thread with a pair of scissors. That is, Clotho gives life or brings us into the world, Lachesis determines the fortunes that shall befall us here, and Atropos concludes our lives.</p>
<p>
<author key="Homère">Homer</author> speaks of one Mœræ only, the daughter of Night, who represents the moral force by which the universe is governed, and to whom both mortals and immortals were forced to submit, Zeus himself being powerless to avert her decrees; but in later times this conception of one inexorable, all-conquering fate became amplified by the poets into that described above.</p>
<p>It was considered the function of the Mœræ to indicate to the Erinnys* (Furies) the precise torture which the wicked should undergo for their crimes.</p>
<p>They had sanctuaries in many parts of Greece. The sacrifices offered were ewes, flowers, and honey.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>The Mœræ were generally represented as three old women. One held a distaff, another the spindle, the third a pair of scissors.</p>
<p>Painters and sculptors depicted them as beautiful maidens of a grave but kindly aspect.</p>
<p>When represented at the feet of Aides in the lower world, they are clad in dark robes; but when they appear on Olympus, they wear bright garments bespangled with stars, and are seated on radiant thrones, with crowns on their heads.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Erinnys*.</head>
<p>The Erinnys* (Furies) were three in number, Alecto*, Megæra*, and Tisiphone*. They were female divinities, who personified the torturing pangs of an evil conscience and the remorse which inevitably follows wrong-doing.</p>
<p>Their office was to observe and punish crimes of the wicked, and to torment the consciences of those whose crimes had not been made public.</p>
<quote>
<p>“Erinnys appears in Sanskrit as Sarunya, a word which signifies the light of morning creeping over the sky. As this reveals the evil deeds done under cover of night, so the lovely Dawn, or Erinnys, came to be regarded, under one aspect, as the terrible detector and avenger of iniquity.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Fiske"><hi rend="i">Fiske</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>According to
<author key="Hésiode">Hesiod</author>, they sprung from the blood of Uranus when he was wounded by Chronos, and were hence supposed to be the embodiment of all the terrible imprecations which the defeated deity called down upon the head of his rebellious son.</p>
<p>Their place of abode was the lower world, where they were employed by Aides and Persephone to chastise and torment those shades who, during their earthly career, had committed crimes, and had not been reconciled to the gods before descending to Hades.</p>
<p>They appeared upon earth as the avenging deities who relentlessly pursued and punished murderers, perjurers, those who had failed m duty to their parents, in hospitality to strangers, or in the respect due to old age.</p>
<p>The early representations depicted them as beings of terrific appearance, with snakes instead of hair. They were sometimes winged. They were clad in black and carried a torch, a sword, a knife, a whip, or a serpent.</p>
<p>Such was the earlier and more dreadful idea of the Erinnys. Subsequently, they appear in a milder and more kindly guise. So long as men were under the dominion of the law of retaliation, — the dreadful
<quote>“eye for eye and tooth for tooth,”</quote> — they were able to derive pleasure from the idea of the inexorable and implacable nature of the Erinnys. But when these barbarous customs died out before advancing civilization, and society began to surround itself with regular laws which protected individual life from arbitrary assaults, then the conception of the Erinnys as compassionate and even benevolent, deities gained ground. Poetical mythology has associated this transformation with the institution of the Areopagus* at Athens, and the purification of Orestes*, effected by this court.</p>
<p>The story relates that Orestes, after having slain his mother, Clytemnestra*, and Ægisthus*, in revenge for the murder of his father, Agamemnon*, wandered for a long time about the earth in a condition bordering on madness, owing to the persecution of the Erinnys. They constantly held up a mirror to his horrified gaze, in which he beheld the face of his murdered mother. At length, however, he was befriended by Apollo and Athene. Apollo first purified him before his own altar at Delphi, and then defended him before the court of the Areopagus, which had been founded by Athene. Orestes was here acquitted, for Athene, when the votes for and against him were equal, declared that then, and in all future time, the criminal should have the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>The Furies were at first very angry, and threatened the land with barrenness, but Athene succeeded in pacifying them by promising that a shrine should be erected to them on the hill of the Areopagus. After they had taken possession of this sanctuary, they were venerated by the Athenians under the name of Semnae* (venerable), or Eumenides* (benevolent), as propitious deities, who, though they continued to punish crimes, were ever ready to grant mercy to the repentant sinner and to give succor to all good men. They were then represented, more especially in Athens, as earnest maidens, dressed, like Artemis*, in short tunics suitable for the chase, but still retaining in their hands the wand of office in the form of a snake.</p>
<p>Sacrifices to the Furies consisted of black sheep and a libation composed of honey and water called Nephalia*.</p>
<p>Besides the shrine in Athens, they had another near the city, a sacred grove in Colonus*, which was celebrated as the last refuge of the unfortunate Œdipus*.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Demeter*</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_063.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Demeter*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Ceres*.</p>
<p>Demeter (from Ge-meter, earth-mother) was a daughter of Chronos and Rhea. She was the goddess of agriculture, and represented that portion of Gæa (the whole solid earth) which we call the earth’s crust, and which produces all vegetation. It is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinctive difference between the three great earth-goddesses Gæa, Rhea, and Demeter. Gæa represents the earth as a whole, with its mighty subterranean forces; Rhea is that productive power which causes vegetation to spring forth, thus sustaining men and animals; Demeter, by presiding over agriculture, directs and utilizes Rhea’s productive powers. The thriving of the crops was ascribed to her influence. She was regarded as the patroness of all those arts which are connected with agriculture, by means of which men were rescued from the lower grades of hunters and shepherds, and brought into subjection to law and morality. She thus becomes that
<quote>“bountiful daughter of Heaven”</quote> who, as
<author key="Schiller">Schiller</author> sings in his “<title>Lay of the Bell</title>:”</p>
<quote>
<l> “Of old</l>
<l>Called the wild man from waste and wold,</l>
<l>And, in his hut thy presence stealing,</l>
<l>Roused each familiar household feeling;</l>
<l> And, best of all happy ties,</l>
<l>The centre of the social band —</l>
<l>The Instinct of the Father-land!”</l>
</quote>
<p>The favor of Demeter was believed to bring mankind rich harvests and fruitful crops, whereas her displeasure caused blight, drought, and famine. The island of Sicily was supposed to be under her special protection, and there she was regarded with particular veneration, the Sicilians naturally attributing the wonderful fertility of their country to the partiality of the goddess.</p>
<p>The most celebrated legend linked with the name of Demeter is the story of the loss of her daughter, Persephone, or Cora*. The latter was once playing with the daughters of Oceanus in a flowery meadow, where they were picking flowers and making garlands. Persephone happened to leave her companions for a moment to pluck a narcissus, when suddenly the ground opened at her feet and Pluto appeared in a chariot. He seized and carried off the maiden. All this occurred with the knowledge of her father, Zeus, who had, unknown to Demeter, promised Persephone to Pluto.</p>
<p>When Demeter missed her darling child, and none could tell her where she had gone, she kindled torches, and during many days and nights wandered over all the earth, not even resting for food or sleep. At length, Helios, who sees everything, told Demeter what had happened, not disguising, however, that it had occurred with the consent of Zeus. Full of wrath and grief, the goddess now withdrew from the society of the other deities. Meanwhile all the fruits of the earth ceased, and a general famine threatened to extinguish the human race. In vain Zeus sent one messenger after another, beseeching the angry goddess to return to Olympus. Demeter swore that she would neither return nor allow the fruits of the earth to grow until her daughter was restored to her. At length Zeus sent Hermes with a petition to Pluto to restore Persephone to her mother. He consented, and she joyfully prepared to follow the messenger of the gods to light and life. Before taking leave of her husband, he presented to her a few seeds of pomegranate, which, in her excitement, she thoughtlessly swallowed. Ascalaphus* reported this, and, as it was a rule that if any immortal had tasted food in the realms of Pluto he must remain there forever, the hopes of the goddesses were disappointed. Zeus finally succeeded in effecting a compromise by inducing Pluto to allow Persephone to spend six months of the year with her mother, whilst during the other six she was to be the joyless companion of her grim lord. Every year at spring-tide she ascends from her subterranean kingdom to enjoy herself in her mother’s company, but returns again in autumn to the regions of darkness and death.</p>
<p>This legend grew out of the phrases which had at first described the change of summer and winter, and it signified the temporary loss which mother-earth sustains every year when the icy breath of winter robs her of her flowers, fruits, and grain. The sorrow of Demeter typifies the gloom which falls upon the earth during the cheerless months of winter. It is believed that in later times a still deeper meaning was conveyed by this beautiful myth, namely, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The grain, which, as it were, remains dead for a time in the dark earth, only to rise one day dressed in a newer and lovelier garb, was supposed to symbolize the soul, which, after death, is free from corruption and lives in a better and purer form.</p>
<p>Closely connected with this beautiful and expressive myth is another which refers to the institution of the Eleusinian* Mysteries. When Demeter, after the loss of her daughter, was wandering over the earth in the guise of a poor old woman, she came to Eleusis, in Attica. The daughters of Celeus*, the king of the city, found her sitting on a stone near a well. They offered the old woman service in their father’s house as nurse to their youngest brother Demophoon*, or Triptolemus*. The goddess consented, and was kindly received m the house of Celeus. She became so fond of the child that she resolved to make him immortal by anointing him with ambrosia, and then laying him at night in the glow of the fire. The imprudent curiosity of his mother, who watched the goddess and rushed into the room, deprived him of the intended blessing.</p>
<p>Demeter now revealed herself to Celeus and commanded him to build a temple for her in Eleusis. When it had been hastily completed, with the assistance of the goddess, she initiated Celeus and some other princes of Eleusis in the solemn rites of her service. In order to spread abroad the blessings which agriculture confers, Demeter presented to Triptolemus her chariot drawn by winged dragons, and, giving him some grains of corn, desired him to journey through the world, teaching mankind the arts of agriculture and husbandry.</p>
<p>The Eleusinian* Mysteries, or Eleusinia*, were observed at Eleusis every fifth year. They were in honor of Demeter, and were the most celebrated of the religious ceremonies of Greece. Some authorities state that Free-Masonry is a branch of the Eleusinian order. The chief object of these Mysteries was to disseminate better and purer ideas of a future life than the popular faith of the Greeks afforded. It was commonly believed that the souls of men after death led a dull, miserable existence in the world of shadows. Those initiated in the Mysteries, however, were taught that death was only a resurrection of the soul to a brighter and better life, on the condition, of course, that a man had fully pleased the gods, and rendered himself worthy of such a happy lot.</p>
<p>The sacrifices offered were millet and barley. Swine were sacrificed because they injure the fruits of the earth.</p>
<p>Demeter punished with severity those that incurred her displeasure. Stellio was a youth who ridiculed the goddess for the eagerness with which she was eating a bowl of porridge, when weary and faint in the vain search for her daughter. She angrily threw into his face the remainder of the food, and changed him into a spotted lizard.</p>
<p>Erysichthon* once cut down an oak-tree which was sacred to Demeter. As a punishment, she afflicted him with insatiate hunger, and, to procure the means to appease it, he sold all his substance, and finally his only daughter. As Poseidon had bestowed on this maiden the power of changing her form, she always escaped from the purchaser in the form of some animal, and returning to her father was sold again. Even this means not sufficing, Erysichthon devoured his own flesh and died.</p>
<p>Ceres of the Romans was the counterpart of the Greek Demeter, her attributes, worship, etc., being identical.</p>
<p>The Cerealia*, festivals in honor of Ceres, commenced on the 19th of April, and lasted several days.</p>
<p>Plutus, the son of Ceres and Jasion, was a personification of the wealth derived from grain. He is represented as being lame when he makes his appearance, and winged when he takes his departure. He was supposed to be blind, because he bestows his gifts without discrimination, frequently passing over good men to heap his treasures upon the bad.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Demeter is usually represented as a woman of majestic appearance with beautiful golden hair, the yellow locks being emblematical of the ripened ears of corn.</p>
<p>Sometimes she appears seated in a chariot drawn by winged dragons; in other representations she stands erect, and always fully draped. She bears a sheaf of wheat-ears in one hand and a lighted torch in the other. Her brows are frequently garlanded with poppies.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Blonde or yellow-haired, fair-tressed, well-garlanded, food-full, youth-rearing, bright-fruited, bright-gifted, season-bringer, gold-sickled, green.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Persephone*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_068.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Persephone*, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Cora*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Proserpina*.</p>
<p>Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was queen of the lower world. The Athenians preferred to call her by her mystic name of Cora. She embodied two distinct conceptions. On the one hand, she appears as the wife of the dark god of the lower world, like him, a gloomy, awe-inspiring deity, who pitilessly drags down all that lives into the hidden depths of the earth, whence the grave is called “the chamber of Persephone.” On the other hand, she appears as Cora, the lovely daughter of Demeter, a personification of that force of nature which yearly causes the most luxuriant vegetation to spring up, only, however, to die again in the autumn.</p>
<p>In a somewhat narrower sense, Persephone may be regarded as a type of the grain which long remains in the ground, where it has been sown, as though dead, but afterwards breaks forth into new life. It was only natural to associate with this last conception, ideas of the immortality of the soul, of which, in the secret doctrines of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Persephone was a symbol.</p>
<div>
<head>Representation.</head>
<p>Persephone is represented as a fair young maiden, or as the grave, severe queen of the world of shadows. In the latter character she may generally be recognized by her sceptre and diadem.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Illustrious, terrible, holy, white-armed, sable-vested.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Ares*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_070.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Ares*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Mars.</p>
<quote>
<p>“Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, represents war from its fatal and destructive side, by which he is clearly distinguished from Athene, the wise disposer of battles. He was, probably, originally a personification of the angry, clouded sky. His home, according to
<author key="Homère">Homer</author>, was in Thrace, the land of boisterous wintry storms, among whose warlike inhabitants he was held in high esteem, but his worship was not so extensive in Greece.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<quote>
<p>“Epic poets represent the god of battles as a wild, ungovernable warrior, who passes through the armies like a whirlwind, hurling to the ground the brave and cowardly alike; destroying chariots and helmets, and triumphing over the terrible desolation.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Berens"><hi rend="i">Berens</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>With strength he combined great agility, and was said to be the fleetest of the gods. He was, however, overmatched in battle by Athene, a palpable indication that prudent courage often accomplishes more than impetuous violence.</p>
<p>In Thebes, Ares was regarded as the god of pestilence; in Athens, as the god of vengeance.</p>
<p>In the Trojan war, Ares espoused the cause of the Trojans.</p>
<p>Ares upon one occasion incurred the displeasure of Poseidon by slaying his son Halirrhothius*. Poseidon summoned Ares to appear before the tribunal of the Olympic gods, which was held upon a hill in Athens. Ares was acquitted, and this event is supposed to have given rise to the name Areopagus (Hill of Ares), which afterwards became so famous as a court of justice.</p>
<p>Hermione* (Harmony) was said to be the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, because from Love and Strife, that is, attraction and repulsion, arises the order or harmony of the universe.</p>
<p>This deity was regarded with a much greater degree of veneration in Rome under the appellation of Mars, or Mavors*. Among the earliest Italian tribes he was worshiped as the god of spring triumphing over the powers of winter.</p>
<p>As the god that strode with warlike step to the battlefield, he was called Gradivus* (from <hi rend="i">gradus</hi>, a step); it being popularly believed by the Romans that he marched before them to battle, and acted as their invisible protector.</p>
<p>The Romans regarded Mars as the father of Romulus*, and the founder and protector of their nation. He was said to have married Nerio*, and from her the Claudian family derived the name of Nero*.</p>
<p>Campus Martius* (Field of Mars) was a field in which the Roman youth practised gymnastic and warlike exercises.</p>
<p>The priests of Mars were twelve in number, and were called Salii*, or the dancers, because dancing in full armor formed an important part in their peculiar ceremonial. It is said that one morning, when Numa* was imploring the protection of Jupiter for the newly-founded city of Rome, the god of heaven sent down an oblong brazen shield (ancile*). As it fell at the feet of the king, a voice was heard declaring that Rome should endure as long as this shield was preserved. In order to prevent its abstraction, Numa caused eleven more to be made exactly like it, and instituted for their protection the Salii, who were selected from the noblest families in Rome. Every year in the month of March, which was sacred to Mars, they bore the sacred shields in solemn procession through the streets of Rome, executing warlike dances and chanting war-songs.</p>
<p>Sacrifices were horses, rams, wolves, and dogs, also grass, because it grows in towns laid desolate by war. Human sacrifices were offered in the earliest ages.</p>
<p>The assistance and protection of the god of war were always solemnly invoked before the departure of Roman army for the field of battle. Any reverses of fortune were ascribed to his anger.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>1. Seated in a chariot drawn by furious horses, called Flight and Terror; sometimes accompanied by Enyo*, or Bellona* (godess of the war-cry).</p>
<p>2. As a youth of martial bearing, fully armed.</p>
<p>3. As descending from the sky, resting one hand on a mountain-cliff, while the other holds a spear and buckler.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Blood-stained, shield-borer, manslayer, town-destroyer, gold-helmed, brazen, people-rouser, impetuous.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Pallas Athene*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_073.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Pallas Athene*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Minerva; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Ushas; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Neith*.</p>
<p>Athene was said to have been produced from the head of Zeus, which Hephæstus had been ordered to cleave open. The goddess of war, in full armor, sprung forth, while a great commotion both on sea and land announced the event to the world. She is also the goddess of wisdom, and as such is the protectress of states; all that their welfare requires in peace or war proceeds from her. Thus she appears as goddess of peace as well as of war. It was she who first taught mankind to manage the horse, to build ships and chariots, and to use the rake and the plough. By later writers she is represented as the patroness of every branch of science, art, and manufacture.</p>
<p>Parthenos* (virgin) was one of Athene’s names, whence the temple of Athens, where she was most religiously worshiped, was called the Parthenon*<note place="bottom">The “Elgin* Marbles,” now in the British Museum, are portions of the statues and reliefs of the Parthenon.</note> (Virgin’s Shrine).</p>
<p>
<author key="Aristote">Aristotle</author> calls Pallas Athene the moon. On the coins of Attica there was a moon as well as an owl and olive branch. It could scarcely have been from any other cause than that of her being regarded as the moon that the owl, whose broad, full eyes shine so brightly in the dark, was consecrated to her. The shield with the Gorgon’s* head on it seems to represent the full-orbed moon, and the title Glaucopis* (from the blueness of her eyes) is given to both Selene and Athene.</p>
<p>The sacred olive-tree, which Athene had caused to grow at the time of her contest with Poseidon about naming the city of Athens, was shown in the temple of Erechtheus* on the Acropolis,<note place="bottom">The Acropolis was a fortified hill at Athens, entered through a magnificent temple-gate called the Propylæa*.</note> and it possessed such a wonderful vitality that, when burned by the Persians, it immediately put forth a fresh shoot.</p>
<p>Theseus gave political unity to the twelve towns of Attica, and established the general worship at Athens. The Athenæa*, which had been instituted by Erechthonius* (a serpent-legged son of Gæa and Hephæstus), were thereafter called Panathenæa*, and were celebrated every fifth year. Citizens from all parts of Attica assembled at Athens, bringing sacrifices consisting of oxen that had never been under the yoke, rams, cows, and lambs. The prizes in the athletic, musical, and literary contests were crowns of olive, and painted vases filled with oil made from the sacred olive-tree.</p>
<p>The Panathenaic* Procession was world-renowned. Its object was to bear a newly-wrought peplos to the Erechtheum*<note place="bottom">Erechtheum*, a temple north of the Parthenon.</note> and place it upon the olive-wood statue of Athene, which was said to have fallen from heaven. The procession formed on the plains of Eleusis, and was composed of various classes of people, all crowned with flowers. The central object of this grand array was a ship moved automatically. It bore for a sail the sacred peplos, upon which young daughters of the noblest families had embroidered in gold the triumphs of Athene.</p>
<p>It was said that Athene wove her own robe and Hera’s. On one occasion, Arachne, a mortal maiden, challenged the goddess to a trial of skill in weaving. Arachne’s work was so perfect, that even Athene could find no fault with it; but she tore it in pieces. Arachne, in despair, hung herself. Athene loosened the rope and saved her life, but the rope was changed into a cobweb, while Arachne became a spider.</p>
<p>As Athene was one day bathing at the fount of Helicon with Chariclo*, one of her favorites, Tiresias*, son of Chariclo, approached the fount to drink, and beheld the goddess. As it was a law of the Celestials that whoever saw one of them without permission should never look upon another object, Tiresias was struck with blindness. To alleviate his misfortune, Athene bestowed upon him the gift of prophecy, and decreed that he should live through seven generations.</p>
<p>The Roman Minerva was early identified with the Greek Athene. In Rome, however, the warlike character of the goddess was merged in that of the peaceful inventress and patroness of the arts and sciences, and of all handiwork of women.</p>
<p>The chief Roman festival in honor of Minerva was the Quinquatrus Majores*. It was held on the 19th of March, and was in later times extended to five days. It was especially observed by all those engaged in intellectual pursuits and artists. As Minerva was also the patroness of schools, the school-boys took part in the celebration.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Goddess of just war, 1st, as offensive, with shield and brandished spear; 2d, as victorious and peacefully ruling, with arm and ægis partially covered with drapery, while the shield rests on the ground.</p>
<p>As the goddess that promoted domestic arts and progress, she is represented with a distaff and spindle.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Blue-eyed or green-eyed, town-destroying, town-protecting, unwearied, invincible, people-rouser. She was called Hippea*, because she taught mankind to manage the horse.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hestia*.</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Hestia*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Vesta*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Anouka.</p>
<p>Hestia was a daughter of Chronos and Rhea. She was the goddess of the hearth, of the fire on it, and of the family. The name Hestia indicates the fixed, steady position of the hearth in the centre of the room in which the family assembled.</p>
<p>The hearth possessed among the ancients a far higher significance than it does in modern life. It served not only for the preparation of meals, but was also esteemed the sacred altar of the house. There the images of the household gods were placed, and there the father, who was the priest of the family, offered sacrifices on all important occasions of domestic life. No offering was made in which Hestia had not her share.</p>
<p>Each town had its Prytaneum* (public hall), where the prytanes*, or elders, held their meetings. There the sacred fire burning on the public hearth was never allowed to die out. If at any time it went out, either from neglect or by accident, it was restored by fire obtained by rubbing pieces of wood together, or by kindling them with a burning glass. The fire of Hestia was a symbol of the life of the State. When a colony was sent out, the bond of union with the parent State was kept unbroken by a portion of the sacred fire being carried with the colonists, to be kept forever in their new home.</p>
<p>The service of Vesta occupied a very important place in the public life of the Romans. Her most ancient temple was situated opposite the Forum. It was built in a circle and was of moderate dimensions. The priestesses, called Vestal Virgins, were six in number, and were chosen, between the ages of six and ten, from the noblest families in Rome. Their term of office was thirty years. During the first ten years they were initiated in their religious duties, during the second they performed them, and during the third they instructed novices. Their chief duty was to watch and feed the ever-burning flame, the extinction of which was regarded as a national calamity of ominous import. Great honors and privileges were accorded to them. The best seats were reserved for their use at all public spectacles. If they met a criminal on his way to execution, they had the power to pardon him, provided it could be proved that the meeting was accidental. The Vestals were vowed to chastity, a violation of which was punished by the offender being buried alive.</p>
<p>The Roman festival Vestalia* was celebrated on the 9th of June, on which occasion the Roman women made a pilgrimage, barefooted, to the temple of the goddess, and placed there offerings of food.</p>
<p>The young of animals were sacrificed to Vesta, also tender shoots of plants, fruits, and libations of wine, water, and oil.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>In consequence of the dignity and sanctity of her character, Hestia was always represented as fully clothed, which may account for the fact that the ancients had so few statues of the goddess. The best example which has been preserved is the Vesta Giustiniani, which belongs to the private collection of Prince Torlonia, of Rome. The goddess is represented as standing, her right hand pressed against her side, while with her left she points towards heaven.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hephæstus*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_078.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Hephæstus*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Vulcan, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Mulciber*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Pthah.</p>
<p>Hephæstus, the god of fire, was a son of Zeus and Hera. According to one account, he was born lame, and his mother cast him from heaven into the sea. The Oceanides Eurynome* and Thetis* tended him for nine years in a deep grotto of the sea, in return for which he made them many ornaments. Another story is that on the occasion of a quarrel between Zeus and Hera, Hephæstus assisted his mother, whereupon the angry god of heaven seized him by the foot and hurled him from Olympus. He fell for a whole day, and alighted at sundown on the isle of Lemnos. The inhabitants received him in their arms, but his leg was broken by the fall, and he remained lame in one foot. Grateful for the kindness of the Lemnians, he henceforth abode in their island.</p>
<quote>
<l> “From morn</l>
<l>To noon lie fell, from noon to dewy eve,</l>
<l>A summer’s day, and with the setting sun</l>
<l>Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star,</l>
<l>On Lemnos, the Ægean isle.”</l>
<bibl>
<author key="Milton"><hi rend="i">Milton</hi></author>’s “<title>Paradise Lost</title><title>,” Book I</title>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The same fundamental idea lies at the foundation of these legends, namely, that fire first came down from heaven in the form of lightning. He was worshiped by the Greeks as the god who had mastered the mighty element and compelled it to do grand service for man. Volcanoes were believed to be his workshops and the Cyclopes his workmen.</p>
<p>It is said that the first work of Hephæstus was a throne of gold, with secret springs, which he presented to Hera. When seated, she found herself unable to move, and all the efforts of the gods to extricate her were unavailing. Dionysus* induced Hephæstus to return to Olympus, where, after having released the queen of heaven from her undignified position, he became reconciled to his parents. He built for himself on Olympus a palace of gold. With the assistance of the Cyclopes, he forged for Zeus his thunderbolts. He constructed the palaces in which the gods resided, made the golden shoes with which they trod the air or water, built for them their wonderful chariots, and shod with brass the horses of celestial origin. He also made the tripods which moved automatically, and formed for Zeus the far-famed Ægis*. He also made various wonderful things for his favorites, or those of Zeus among men. Among these were the golden dogs which guarded the house of Alcinous*, king of the Phæacians*, the brass-footed, fire-breathing bull which guarded the Golden Fleece. He formed for Minos*. King of Crete, a brazen man named Talos*, who compassed the island three times a day to guard it from invasion. He destroyed people by making himself red-hot in the fire, and then embracing them. Hephæstus also made the armor of Achilles*, that of Æneas*, the shield of Heracles*, a collar given to Hermione, and the sceptre of Agamemnon.</p>
<p>Hephæstus was held in great esteem at Athens, also by the Greeks in Campania and Sicily.</p>
<p>Aphrodite was said to be the wife of Hephæstus. This was probably intended to convey the idea that truly artistic works can be created only in harmony with beauty.</p>
<p>The Romans called this god Vulcanus, or, according to its more ancient spelling, Volcanus. They honored in him the blessings and beneficial action of fire. They also sought his protection against conflagrations. Under the influence of the Greek writers, the original and more common conception of the god gave place to the popular image of the smith-god, or Mulciber, who had his forges in Ætna, or on the Lipari Isles.</p>
<p>The chief shrine of the god in Rome was the Volcanal*, which was not really a temple, but merely a covered fireplace. In the Campus Martius, however, was a temple, where the festival of the Vulcanalia, or Volcanalia, was celebrated on the 23d of August. Sacrifices were calves and male pigs. The streets were illuminated, fires were kindled, and animals thrown into the flames as a sacrifice to Vulcan for security against conflagrations.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Mature bearded man, with short garment so arranged as to leave the right arm and shoulder free; he wears a pointed cap, which is the badge of an artisan; he holds a hammer and stands near an anvil or forge. Sometimes he appears just ready to strike with the hammer; at others turning a thunderbolt, which an eagle beside him is waiting to carry to Zeus.</p>
<p>As artificer of the gods, seated at work in his palatial workshop.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Both-feet-lame, lame-foot, weak-ankled, feeble, renowned or bright artist, very-bright, wise.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Aphrodite*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_081.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Aphrodite*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Venus; <hi rend="i">Assyrian</hi>, Ishtar*; <hi rend="i">Babylonian</hi>, Mylitta*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Athor*; <hi rend="i">Phœnician</hi>, Astarte*; <hi rend="i">Jewish</hi>, Ashtoreth*.</p>
<p>In the <title>Iliad</title>, Aphrodite is represented as the daughter of Zeus and Dione, the goddess of moisture. This account was replaced by another, that she was born of the foam of the sea, and first touched land on the island of Cyprus, which was henceforth sacred to her. She was probably a personification of the creative and generative forces of nature. Among the Greeks she was worshiped as the goddess of beauty and love.</p>
<p>Aphrodite was the most beautiful of all the goddesses. She possessed a magic girdle called the <hi rend="i">cestus</hi>, which was endowed with the power of inspiring affection for the wearer. Her usual attendants were the Horæ* and Charites*.</p>
<p>Sometimes Ares, sometimes Hephæstus, was said to be her husband. The children of Ares and Aphrodite were Hermione, Eros, Anteros*, Demus*, and Phobus*.</p>
<p>The dove, swan, swallow, sparrow, the myrtle, and the rose were sacred to Aphrodite.</p>
<p>The Venus of Milo is now in the Louvre at Paris. It was found in the year 1820, on the Island of Milo, hence its name. It is noted for the dignified expression of the head.</p>
<p>The Venus de Medici is so called from its having been in the possession of the princes of that name in Rome when it first attracted attention, about two hundred years ago. There is a story that the artist was employed by public authority to make a statue exhibiting the perfection of female beauty, and to aid him in his task, the most perfect forms the city (Athens) could supply were furnished him for models. It is to this
<author key="Thomson">Thomson</author> alludes in his “<title>Summer</title>.”</p>
<quote>
<l>“So stands the statue that enchants the world;</l>
<l>So bending tries to veil the matchless boast,</l>
<l>The mingled beauties of exulting Greece.”</l>
</quote>
<p>Greek festivals in her honor were called Aphrodisia. Sacrifices were goats and swine, with libations of wine, milk, and honey.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The story of her love for the beautiful Adonis* is of Asiatic origin. The germ may be easily distinguished. It represents the decay of vegetation in autumn, and its resuscitation in spring. Adonis, whom Aphrodite tenderly loved, was killed by a wild boar while hunting. Inconsolable at her loss. Aphrodite piteously entreated Father Zeus to restore his life. Zeus at length consented that Adonis should spend one-half of the year in the world of shadows, and the other in the upper world. Clearly, the monster that deprived Adonis of life is only a symbol of the frosty winter, before whose freezing blast all life in nature decays.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The Roman Venus (the Lovely One) was regarded by the earlier Italian tribes as the goddess of spring, for which reason April, the month of buds, was held sacred to her. Annual festivals, called Veneralia*, were held in her honor. She was worshiped as Venus Cloacina* (the purifier).</p>
<quote>
<p>“The surname of Libitina* points to her as goddess of corpses. All the apparatus of funerals were kept in this temple, and her attendants were the public undertakers of the city.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Julius Cæsar erected a temple to Venus Genetrix*, the goddess of wedlock.</p>
<div>
<head>Representation.</head>
<p>In the more ancient temples of this goddess in Cyprus, she was represented under the form of a rude, conical stone; but the Grecian painters and sculptors vied with each other in forming her image the ideal of female beauty and attraction.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Smile-loving, well-garlanded, golden, quick-winking, well-tressed, care-dissolving, artful, gold-bridled, sea-born.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Horæ* (The Seasons.)</head>
<p>The Horæ* were three beautiful maidens, daughters of Zeus and Themis. Their names were Eunomia* (wise legislation), Dike*, or Dice* (justice), and Irene* (peace). The Greeks recognized only three seasons, nature being supposed to be wrapped in death or slumber during the cheerless and unproductive portion of the year which we call winter.</p>
<p>The Horæ were also the deities of the fast-fleeting hours. In this capacity they assisted every morning in yoking the celestial horses to the chariot of the sun which they help to unyoke when he sinks to rest.</p>
<p>They were originally personifications of the clouds, and are described as opening and closing the gates of heaven and causing fruits and flowers to spring forth when they pour down upon them their refreshing and life-giving streams. They appeared as attendants upon Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, and the Muses.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>When they are depicted separately as personifications of the different seasons, the Horæ representing spring appears laden with flowers, that of summer bears a sheaf of corn, whilst the personification of autumn has her hands filled with clusters of grapes and other fruits.</p>
<p>Sometimes they appear as lovely girls dancing, and adorned with flowers, fruits, and garlands.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Charites*.</head>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Charites*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Gratiæ*.</p>
<p>The name Charites is derived from Charis*, a term originally applied to a personification of grace and beauty. They were the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, and were three in number, Euphrosyne*, Aglaia*, and Thalia*.</p>
<p>They were believed to preside over those qualities which constitute grace, modesty, unconscious beauty, gentleness, purity, and eternal youth. Wherever joy or pleasure, grace and gayety reigned, they were supposed to be present. Music, eloquence, poetry and art, though the direct work of the Muses, received from the Graces additional refinement and beauty, for which reason they are always regarded as the friends of the Muses, with whom they resided on Mount Olympus. Their special function was to act, with the Seasons, as attendants upon Aphrodite, whom they adorned with wreaths of flowers.</p>
<p>Temples and altars were everywhere erected in their honor, and people of all ages and ranks entreated their favor. Incense was burned daily upon their altars, and at every banquet they were invoked, and a libation poured out to them.</p>
<p>Charitesia* were festivals in honor of the Charites or Graces, in which athletic games, music, and dancing held prominent places.</p>
<div>
<head>Representation.</head>
<p>They are represented as beautiful, slender maidens in the full bloom of youth, with arms lovingly intertwined, and are either undraped, or wear a fleecy, transparent garment of an ethereal fabric.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Eros*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_085.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Eros*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Cupid*, <hi rend="i">or</hi> Amor*.</p>
<p>Eros is apparently a personification of the principle of attraction, on which the coherence of the physical world depends. Eros, the divine spirit of Love, was said to have sprung forth from Chaos, and by his beneficent power to have reduced to harmony the shapeless elements. This beautiful conception gradually faded away, and he was replaced by the mischief-loving little god of love, the son of Ares and Aphrodite. His characteristic weapon is a golden bow, with which he shoots forth his arrows from secret lurking-places. Zeus himself is represented as unable to withstand his influence, an intimation that love is one of the most terrible and mighty forces of nature.</p>
<p>Anteros* was conceived by the imagination of the poets as the brother and companion of Eros.</p>
<p>Eros was venerated not only as the god that kindles love between the sexes, but was also regarded as the author of love and friendship between youths and men. On this account his statue was generally placed in the gymnasia between those of Hermes and Heracles, and the Spartans sacrificed to him before battle, binding themselves to hold together faithfully in battle, and to stand by one another in the hour of need.</p>
<p>This deity was termed by the Romans Amor, or Cupid, but this was in imitation of the Greek Eros.</p>
<p>The rose was held specially sacred to him, for which reason he often appears crowned with roses.<note place="bottom">The rose was given by Cupid to Harpocrates*, the god of silence, whence it is supposed originated the custom, which prevailed among the northern nations of Europe, of suspending a rose from the ceiling over the upper end of their tables when it was intended that the conversation which took place should be secret, and it was this custom that, undoubtedly, gave use to the common expression “Under the Rose.”</note></p>
<p>The fiction of Cupid and Psyche* (the soul) is an allegory perhaps intended for a representation of the mystic union between the divine love and the human soul, and of the trials and purifications which the latter must undergo in order to be perfectly fitted for an enduring union with the divinity.</p>
<p>Psyche was the daughter of a king, and was the youngest of three sisters. She was so beautiful that people neglected the worship of Aphrodite for that of Psyche, and in revenge the goddess sent her son, Eros, to fill the heart of Psyche with love for some inferior being. When Eros saw the lovely maiden, his own heart was filled with love for her. In obedience to the oracle of Delphi, she was dressed as though for the grave, and conducted to the edge of a yawning precipice. The gentle Zephyrus* transported her to a verdant meadow, in the midst of which stood a stately palace surrounded by groves and fountains. Here dwelt Eros, who wooed her in the softest accents, but warned her, as she valued his love, not to endeavor to behold him. For some time Psyche was obedient, but in the midst of her happiness she longed for the society of her sisters. In accordance with her desire, they were conducted by Zephyrus to her fairy-like abode. Jealous of her happiness, they wished to destroy it, so they persuaded Psyche that her husband was a monster, and gave her a dagger to use for the purpose of delivering herself from his power. The unhappy bride foolishly yielded to their influences, so one night she went with a lighted lamp to solve the mystery of her husband’s appearance. She beheld the marvelous beauty of Eros, but while she was gazing a drop of oil from her lamp fell on the shoulder of the sleeping god; he awoke, and fled from her. Then the penitent Psyche sought long and sorrowfully for him. After many disappointments they were reunited, and Zeus made her immortal.<note place="bottom">The word Psyche signifies “butterfly,” the emblem of the soul in ancient art.</note></p>
<quote>
<l>“But never more they met! since doubts and fears,</l>
<l> Those phantom-shapes that haunt and blight the earth,</l>
<l>Had come ’twixt her, a child of sin and tears,</l>
<l> And that bright spirit of immortal birth;</l>
<l>Until her pining soul and weeping eyes</l>
<l>Had learned to seek him only in the skies;</l>
<l>Till wings unto the weary heart were given,</l>
<l>And she became Love’s angel bride in heaven.”</l>
<bibl>
<author key="Hervey"><hi rend="i">T. K. Hervey</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<div>
<head>Representation.</head>
<p>Eros is represented as a lovely boy, with rounded limbs, and a merry, roguish expression. He has golden wings, and a quiver slung over his shoulder. This contained his magical and unerring arrows. In one hand he bears his golden bow, and in the other a torch.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hymenæus*, or Hymen*</head>
<p>Hymenæus was a personification of the happiness of married life. By some authorities he is called a son of Apollo and the muse Urania. Others assert that he was a mortal, whose married life was so remarkably happy, that henceforth the name of Hymen became synonymous with conjugal felicity. He was invoked at all marriage festivities.</p>
</div>
<div>
<head>Phœbus Apollo*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_089.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Phœbus Apollo*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Apollo; <hi rend="i">Phœnician</hi>, Reshiph-Mical*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Horus*.</p>
<p>Apollo was the son of Zeus and Leto. The island of Delos was his birthplace. He was the god of light, prophecy, archery, music, poetry, and of the arts and sciences.</p>
<p>He represented, first, the great orb of day which illumines the world, and, secondly, the heavenly light which animates the soul of man. We find Apollo, in later times, completely identified with Helios.</p>
<p>Soon after his birth he slew the giant Tityus* and the serpent Python*, — the latter a monster that inhabited the valley near Delphi, and destroyed both men and cattle. These myths merely represent the conquering power exercised by the genial warmth of spring over the dark gloom of winter. He is also represented as a terrible god of death, sending virulent pestilences, and dealing out destruction to men and animals by means of his unerring arrows. This may easily be explained. The rays of the sun do indeed put to flight the cold of winter, but, as their heat increases, they ultimately become the cause of disease and death.</p>
<p>With the first beams of the light of the sun, all nature awakens to renewed life, and the woods re-echo with the songs of the birds. Hence, Apollo is the god of music. He is himself the musician among the Olympic gods.</p>
<p>He attained his greatest importance among the Greeks as god of prophecy. His oracle of Delphi was in high repute all over the world.</p>
<p>That which raised the whole moral tone of the Greek nation was the belief that he was the god that accepted repentance as an atonement for sin, who pardoned the contrite sinner, and who acted as the protector of those who, like Orestes, had committed a crime which required long years of expiation.</p>
<p>The Greeks celebrated the Pythian* games in honor of Apollo in the third year of every Olympiad. There were at these games sacrifices of cakes and frankincense, expiatory rites, purifications through sprinkling by laurel boughs. Sacred hymns were sung in honor of the god, and sacred dances were performed by choruses, who danced around a blazing altar. Athletic games and chariot races were instituted about 585 <hi rend="sc">b. c.</hi>, and musical and literary competition held a high position in this festival.</p>
<p>The most splendid temple of Apollo was at Delphi, which was considered the centre of the earth. The oracle was second only to that of Dodona. The priestess, or Pythoness*, was seated upon a tripod over a chasm in the earth, whence issued a cold vapor, by aid of which, assisted sometimes by chewing leaves of laurel or by draughts of water from a sacred well, she was excited to a frenzy, which prepared her to receive the intimations of the will of deity. Priests trained in the office listened to her utterances and expressed them in ambiguous verse.</p>
<p>Soon after his victory over the Python, Apollo saw Eros bending his bow, and mocked at his efforts. Eros, to punish him, shot him in the heart with his golden arrow of love, and at the same time discharged his leaden arrow of aversion into that of Daphne*, daughter of the river-god Peneus. Daphne fled from Apollo, and calling to her father for aid, she was transformed into a laurel-bush. Apollo sorrowfully crowned his head with the leaves, and declared that, in memory of his love, it should henceforth remain ever green and be held sacred to him.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The story of Daphne indicates the love of the Sun for the Dawn, who flees at his approach, and at length, as he draws nearer to her, vanishes away.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_091.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="sc">The</hi> renowned singer Orpheus* was the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope*. He was a poet, a teacher of the Orphic mysteries, and great musician. The trees and rocks moved to the tones of his lyre. He married Eurydice*, and their life was full of happiness. But Eurydice, while fleeing from Aristæus*, was bitten in the foot by a venomous snake, and died of the wound. Her disconsolate husband determined to brave the horrors of the lower world to entreat Aides to restore her to him. He struck the chords of his lyre, and drew forth tones which softened the heart of the stern monarch of Erebus, and Eurydice was restored on condition that he should not look back upon her until they reached the upper world. They journeyed on through the gloomy regions of Erebus, and were about to pass the extreme limits, when Orpheus, to convince himself that his beloved wife was really behind him, looked back. The glance was fatal; she was caught back, and vanished from his sight forever. He shunned all society, music was his sole companion. At last he was torn to pieces by some Thracian women who were performing the rites of Dionysus (Bacchus). His head was thrown into the river Hebrus, and, as it floated down the stream, the lips continued to murmur the name of Eurydice.</p>
<quote>
<p>“Eurydice stung by a serpent means that the evening twilight dies out before the coming night. Eurydice lost on her return means the early light which appears in the morning, but is seen no more when the sun is risen.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>Cassandra*, a daughter of Priam*, king of Troy, was beloved by Apollo. She promised to marry him if he would confer upon her the gift of prophecy; but having received the boon, she refused to comply with the conditions upon which it had been granted. Unable to recall his gift, he rendered it useless by causing her predictions to fail in gaining credence, so, although she always prophesied correctly, no one believed her.</p>
<p>Apollo carried off Cyrene* to that part of Libya afterwards named for her. Their son was Aristæus, who discovered the culture of the olive and the mode of managing bees.</p>
<p>Apollo afterwards married Coronis*. One day, his favorite bird, the raven, flew to him with the intelligence that his wife had transferred her affections to another. Apollo instantly destroyed her with one of his death-bringing darts. He repented when too late. He punished the raven for its garrulity by changing its color from white to black.<note place="bottom">Read
<author key="Saxe">Saxe</author>’s “<title>How the Raven became Black</title>.”</note></p>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_093.png"/>
</figure>
<p>Coronis left an infant son named Asclepius* (Æsculapius*), who was educated by the Centaur Chiron*. He became a celebrated physician, and was so skilful that he could restore the dead to life. Aides complained to Zeus, who killed Asclepius with one of his thunderbolts. Apollo was so exasperated that he killed the Cyclops who had forged it. For this offence he was banished from Olympus. Coming to earth, he for nine years served Admetus* as a shepherd, and was treated by him with the utmost kindness. By the aid of Apollo, Admetus gained the hand of Alcestis, daughter of Pelias*. The exiled god obtained from the Fates the gift of immortality for Admetus, on condition that when his last hour approached some member of his family should be willing to die in his place. When the fatal time came, Alcestis took his place. But Heracles* (Hercules), happening to arrive at the house of Admetus, engaged and overcame death, and restored Alcestis to her family.</p>
<p>Hyacinthus* was a beautiful youth beloved by Apollo. As the god and his favorite were one day playing with the discus, it rebounded, and killed the youth. Apollo changed him into a flower, called for him the Hyacinth.</p>
<p>Cyparissus* killed by accident one of Apollo’s favorite stags. His grief so preyed on his mind that he gradually pined away, and died of a broken heart. He was transformed by the god into a cypress-tree.</p>
<p>Apollo and Poseidon built for Laomedon*, king of Troy, the walls of the city. It was said that when Apollo grasped the chords of his lyre, the huge blocks of stone moved of their own accord, adjusting themselves into the places assigned for them.</p>
<p>Marsyas* was a satyr*, who, having found the flute which Athene had thrown away in disgust, discovered that, having touched the lips of a goddess, it played most charmingly. He foolishly challenged Apollo to a musical contest. The god defeated the presumptuous mortal, flayed him while alive, and changed him into a river, which is still known by his name.</p>
<p>King Midas* had the bad taste to declare his preference for the music of Pan, in a contest which that god had with Apollo. The insulted deity caused his ears to grow in length and shape like those of an ass. Midas endeavored to conceal the deformity, but he could not hide the secret from his barber, whom he bound to secrecy. This man found it so painful to keep the secret to himself, that he dug a hole in the ground and whispered into it, “King Midas has the ears of an ass.” Some reeds sprung up from the spot, and repeated the words whenever the wind blew.</p>
<p>There was no sanctuary erected to Apollo in Rome until <hi rend="sc">b. c.</hi> 430, when the Romans, to avert a plague, built a temple in his honor. His worship was especially exalted by the Emperor Augustus, who ascribed his victory at Actium to the assistance of the god. He accordingly erected a magnificent temple to Apollo on the Palatine.</p>
<p>The Roman games in honor of Apollo were Apollinares Ludi* and Ludi Seculares*, or Century games.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>Apollo is always represented as having a youthful appearance. He is crowned with laurel, and wears a purple robe. The most beautiful and most celebrated of all the statues of Apollo is the “Apollo Belvedere*,” which was discovered in 1503, near Antium, and is now in the Vatican. It is a standing figure, in marble, more than seven feet high, nude, except for the cloak which is fastened around the neck and hangs over the extended left arm. It is supposed to represent the god in the moment when he has shot the arrow to destroy the monster, Python. The victorious divinity is in the act of stepping forward. The left arm, which seems to have held the bow, is outstretched, and the head is turned in the same direction. In attitude and proportion, the graceful majesty of the figure is unsurpassed. The effect is completed by the countenance, where, on the perfection of youthful godlike beauty, dwells the consciousness of triumphant power.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Crooked or bending (probably from the position of the archer when shooting), herding (as keeping the flocks and herds of the gods, or those of Admetus), silver-bowed, far-shooter, gold-sworded, unshorn-locked.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Artemis*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_096.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Artemis*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Diana*; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Bubastis*.</p>
<p>Artemis was worshiped by the Greeks under various appellations. Thus she is known as the Arcadian, Ephesian, and Brauronian Artemis, and also as Selene-Artemis.</p>
<p>The Arcadian Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and twin-sister of Apollo. She was a moon-goddess, and also presided over hunting.</p>
<p>Artemis is the feminine counterpart of her brother, and, like him, though she deals out destruction and sudden death to men and animals, she is also able to alleviate suffering and cure diseases. She devoted herself to the chase. When it was ended, Artemis and her maidens loved to assemble in a shady grove or on the banks of a favorite stream, where they joined in song or the dance. The hind, dog, bear, and wild boar were sacred to her.</p>
<p>The purity and chastity generally ascribed to Artemis may have their origin in the pure light of the moon in southern regions. As a virgin-goddess, Artemis was especially venerated by young maidens, who before marrying sacrificed their hair to her.</p>
<p>The Ephesian Artemis, known to us as “Diana of the Ephesians,” was an ancient Asiatic divinity of Persian origin called Metra*, whom the Greek colonists in Asia Minor identified with their own Artemis. There was a magnificent temple erected to this divinity at Ephesus. It was considered one of the seven wonders of the world.</p>
<p>Artemis Orthia* was a dark and cruel deity to whom human sacrifices were offered in Laconia. Lycurgus* abolished this barbarous custom, but caused instead a number of boys to be cruelly whipped before the image of the goddess on the occasion of her annual festival. This is the same Artemis to whom Agamemnon was about to offer his daughter Iphigenia*, previous to the departure of the Greeks for Troy. The Scythians in Tauris likewise had a goddess whom they propitiated with human sacrifices. This caused her to be confounded with Artemis Orthia, and the story arose that Iphigenia was conveyed by the goddess to Tauris, from which place she subsequently, assisted by her brother Orestes, brought the image of the goddess to Brauron in Attica. She was then known as the Brauronian Artemis.</p>
<p>The most celebrated statue of this divinity is that known as the Diana of Versailles, now in the Louvre. In this statue the goddess appears in the act of rescuing a hunted deer from its pursuers, on whom she is turning with angry mien. One hand is laid protectingly on the head of the stag, whilst with the other she draws an arrow from the quiver which hangs over her shoulder.</p>
<p>The famous hunter Actæon*, happening to see Artemis and her attendents bathing, imprudently ventured to approach. The goddess, incensed at his audacity, sprinkled him with water, and transformed him into a stag. His own dogs tore him in pieces.</p>
<p>Niobe*, being the mother of seven sons and seven daughters, proudly set herself above Leto, who had but two children. The goddess complained to Apollo and Artemis, and soon all the children of Niobe lay slain by their arrows. Niobe, stiffening with grief, was turned into stone.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The beauty of the children of Niobe is the beauty of clouds flushed with the light of the morning, which are scattered from before the face of the morning sun. Her tears are the rain-drops which turn to ice on the mountain-summits, where men fancy they see her form hardened into stone.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The Diana of the Romans was identified with the Greek Artemis. A temple was dedicated to her on the Aventine hill by Servius Tullius, who is said to have introduced the worship of this divinity into Rome.</p>
<p>The Nemoralia, or Grove Festivals, were celebrated in her honor on the 13th of August.</p>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>As Selene-Artemis, or the moon-goddess, she is always represented as wearing a crescent on her forehead, whilst a flowing veil, bespangled with stars, reaches to her feet, and a long robe completely envelops her.</p>
<p>As goddess of the chase she is represented as a youthful and slender maiden, taller than her attendant nymphs. She wears a short robe, and her feet are covered with buskins. She has a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder, and carries a bow.</p>
<p><hi rend="b">Epithets.</hi> — Arrow-joying, gold-bridled, gold-shafted, deer-slaying, beast-marking, rushing, holy.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<head>Hermes*.</head>
<figure>
<graphic url="http://obvil.github.io/mythographie/images/edwards_hand-book-mythology_1883_099.png"/>
</figure>
<p><hi rend="b">Comparative Mythology.</hi> — <hi rend="i">Greek</hi>, Hermes*; <hi rend="i">Roman</hi>, Mercury*; <hi rend="i">Hindu</hi>, Sarameyas; <hi rend="i">Egyptian</hi>, Thoth* (as god of letters and wisdom), Anubis (as conductor of souls to the lower world).</p>
<p>Hermes was the son of Zeus and Maia* (one of the daughters of Atlas). He was the god that presided over commerce, eloquence, wrestling, thieving, and everything that required skill and ingenuity. He was messenger of Zeus, and conductor of souls to the underworld; as the latter he was called Psychopompos*. He was also god of the fertilizing rain. Later poets make him the inventor of the alphabet, and of the art of interpreting languages.</p>
<p>He was born in a cavern in Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia. The story is that four hours after his birth he set forth to steal some of the cattle of the gods which fed in Pieria, at the foot of Mount Olympus, under the care of Apollo. At the door of the cavern he found a tortoise-shell, from which he formed the lyre.<note place="bottom">Read “<title>The Finding of the Lyre</title>.” —
<author key="Lowell">Lowell</author>.</note> Arriving in Pieria, he drove off fifty cows, and took them to Arcadia unseen by any but a man named Battus*. Apollo, pursuing, came to the cave of the nymph Maia, and threatened the babe severely if he did not restore the oxen. Hermes denied the charge, and pleaded his extreme youth as proof of his innocence. At last Apollo carried him to the throne of Zeus to have their quarrel decided. Zeus ordered Hermes to restore the cattle. When the divine shepherd heard the music of the lyre, the chords of which Hermes touched as if by chance, he was so entranced that he gladly offered his oxen in exchange for this new instrument, and promised to give Hermes full dominion over flocks and herds. The offer was accepted. Apollo also gave Hermes the Caduceus*, or golden wand. This wand was surmounted by wings. Wishing to prove the truth of the assertion made by Apollo, that it had the power of uniting all beings divided by hate, Hermes threw it down between two snakes which were fighting. They curled around the staff and remained ever after permanently attached to it. The wand typified power; the wings, diligence; the serpents, wisdom or prudence.</p>
<quote>
<p>“The story of Hermes sprung from the varying actions of the wind, which he personified. He was simply air in motion, which in one hour may breathe as softly as a child in its cradle, and in the next may tear up forests in its rage. The music which he produced was the melody of the winds. The cows which he stole were the bright clouds driven across the heaven.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Cox G. W."><hi rend="i">Cox</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>It was in his character of wind-god that Hermes was believed to bear away the souls of the dead. The ancients believed that the wind carried away the souls of the dead, and this superstition still prevails in some parts of Europe.</p>
<p>As the patron of commerce, Hermes was supposed to be the promoter of intercourse between nations; hence he is the god of travelers, over whose safety he presided, and he severely punished those that refused assistance o the lost or weary wayfarer. He was also guardian of streets and roads, and his statues, called Hermæ* (pillars of stone surmounted by a head of Hermes), were placed at cross-roads and in streets.</p>
<p>Zeus presented to Hermes a winged cap (Petasus) and winged shoes (Talaria). The wings were emblematic of the wings which language gives to the thoughts of men.</p>
<quote>
<p>“While Apollo represents the warm, genial sunshine, Hermes, as a power of nature, is the rain. Both appear in the character of deities benevolent and propitious towards mankind, and this is probably the reason why Hermes and Apollo have so many features in common. Their chief difference lies in the fact that while Apollo, as god of light, represents the higher intelligence of the mind, Hermes represents the practical wisdom of this world.”</p>
<bibl>
<author key="Seemann"><hi rend="i">Seemann</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<p>The sacrifices to Hermes were incense, honey, cakes, figs, young lambs, and goats. Tongues of animals were offered to him because the tongue is the organ of speech. Festivals were called Hermæa*.</p>
<p>Mercury was worshiped by the Romans solely as god of trade. The guild of merchants regarded him as their tutelary deity, and offered sacrifices to him and his mother, Maia, on the Ides of May.</p>
<p>In later times he was identified with the Greek Hermes.</p>
<quote>
<l>“Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods,</l>
<l>And I, who am their herald, most of all.</l>
<l>No rest have I, nor respite. I no sooner</l>
<l>Unclasp the winged sandals from my feet,</l>
<l>Than I again must clasp them, and depart</l>
<l>Upon some foolish errand.”</l>
<bibl>
<author key="Longfellow"><hi rend="i">Longfellow</hi></author>.</bibl></quote>
<div>
<head>Representations.</head>
<p>In his statues Hermes is represented as a beardless youth, with broad chest and graceful but muscular limbs.</p>
<p>As messenger of the gods, he wears the Petasus and Talaria, and bears in his hand the Caduceus, or herald’s staff.</p>
<p>As god of eloquence, he is often represented with chains of gold hanging from his lips; sometimes without arms, indicating that the power of speech can prevail over everything without the assistance of arms.</p>
<p>As patron of merchants, he bears a purse in his hand.</p>