Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3

Amidst the whole detail of the Iliad, in one instance only have we Trojan Nymphs conceived after the Greek fashion: it is when those of the mountains, according to the speech of Andromache, planted elms round about the fresh-made tomb of her father Eetion.

As a general rule, no Trojan refers in speech either to any legend, or to any intermediate order, of supernatural beings. Destiny, named by Hecuba, is, as we have seen, a metaphysical idea, rather than a person³³².

The very name of Olympus itself is a symbol of nationality; and around it are grouped the forms, which either the popular belief, or the imagination of the Poet, incorporated into the company of objects for worship. They form a body wonderfully brilliant and diversified. They pervade the Greek mind in such a way, as to appear alike in its didactic, and its most deeply pathetic moods. The speech of Phœnix gives us the Parable of Ἄτη and the Λιταί: then the episode of Meleager, which is founded on the wrath of Diana: but into this legend itself, inserted into the speech, is again interpolated the separate legend of Apollo and Alcyone³³³. The speech of Agamemnon, in the Nineteenth Book, affords us another example³³⁴. The case is the same in the most pathetic strains. Achilles, in the interview with Priam, exhorts him to take food by the example of Niobe, and appends her tale³³⁵: Penelope, praying to Diana in the extremity of her grief, recites the tale of the daughters of Pandareus³³⁶. Even the Suitor Antinous points his address to Ulysses with the semi-divine legend of the Centaurs and Lapithæ³³⁷. Everywhere, and from all the receptacles of thought, mythology overflows. But in Troy the case is quite different. There the human mind never seems to resort to it, either for food or in sport. We find deities, priests, prophets, ceremonial, all apparently in abundance: in all of these, except the first, the Greeks are much poorer; but each of them, in and for himself, is in contact with an entire supernatural world, the creation of luxuriant and energetic fancy, which ranges alike over the spheres of sense and of metaphysics. Andromache, virtuous and sincere as Penelope, has no such mental wealth; her thoughts, and those of Hecuba and Priam, both ordinarily and also on the death of Hector, are limited to topics the most obvious and primitive, with which society, however undeveloped, is familiar. From this limitation, and from the nature of those legends respecting deities, of which the scene is laid in Troas, it seems reasonable to believe that the mythological dress is of purely Hellenic origin.

The dedication to Jupiter of the lofty and beautiful chestnut-tree³³⁸ near Troy, is in correspondence with the oak of Dodona, and indicates quite a different train of thought from those which conceived the Greek Olympus. It is probably both a fragment of nature-worship in its Oriental form, and likewise a portion of the external and ritual development, in which the religion of Troy was evidently prolific enough. And in this case the negative evidence of Homer is especially strong; because the great number of the particular spots on the plain of Troy, which he has had occasion to commemorate, constitute a much more minute topography there, than he has given us on any other scene, not even excepting Ithaca: so that he could hardly have avoided showing us, had it been the fact, that the religion of Troy entered largely into what Mr. Grote has so well called ‘the religious and personal interpretation of nature.’

Next as to those divine persons of the second order, who are so abundantly presented to us by Homer in relations with the Greeks. Iris visits the Trojans thrice. First, she repairs to their Assembly in the form of Polites. Secondly, she appears to Helen, as her sister-in-law Laodice. She delivers her message to Priam in the Twenty-fourth Book without disguise; perhaps because it was necessary³³⁹ that he should have the assistance of a deity seen and heard, in order to embolden him for a seemingly desperate enterprise. But there is nothing in his account of the interview, which requires us to suppose that the person Iris was known to Priam. The expression he uses is³⁴⁰

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἄκουσα θεοῦ καὶ ἐσέδρακον ἄντην.

And again, he calls her an Olympian messenger³⁴¹ from Jupiter. Another passage carries the argument a point further, by showing us that the appearance of this benignant deity was alarming, doubtless because it was strange, to him. When she arrives, she addresses him very softly τυτθὸν φθεγξαμένη (170): but he is seized with dread;

τὸν δὲ τρόμος ἔλλαβε γυῖα·

an emotion, which I do not remember to have found recorded on any apparition of a divinity to a Greek hero.

Poverty of Trojan Mythology.

Thus far then it would appear probable, that in the Trojan mythology the list of major deities was more contracted than in Greece, and that the minor deities were almost unknown. But perhaps the most marked difference between the two systems is in the copious development on the Greek side of the doctrine of a future state, compared with the jejune and shadowy character of that belief among the Trojans.

Jejune doctrine of a Future State.

In the narrative of the sack of Hypoplacian Thebes, and again in her first lament over Hector, Andromache does indeed speak of her husband, father, and brothers, respectively, as having entered the dwellings of Aides³⁴². But these references are slight, and it may almost be said perfunctory. Not another word is said either in the Twenty-second Book, or in the whole of the Twenty-fourth, about the shade of Hector.

When Pope closed his Iliad with the line it probably did not occur to him, that he was not merely altering the poetry of Homer, but falsifying also his picture of the Trojan religion; which had indeed its funeral rites, but so described as to leave us no means of concluding, that they were in any degree directed to procuring the comfort and tranquillity of the dead. The silence observed about the spirit of Hector is remarkable from the contrast with the case of Patroclus. Both are mourned for passionately, by those who love them best: but the shade of Patroclus is the great figure in the mourning of Achilles, while Hector’s existence after death is but once owned, faintly and in the abstract. Nor, as we see from the Odyssey, was this homage to the shade of Patroclus a thing occasional or accidental. We there meet the souls of all the great departed of the War, in the under-world. That region, opened to Ulysses, had formerly been opened to Hercules. Even the dissolute Suitors cannot be dismissed from life, without our being called to accompany their spirits past the Leucadian rock to the place of their destination. The warriors slain in battle with the Cicones are thrice invoked by the survivors³⁴³. Nay Elpenor himself, most insignificant of men, is duly brought before us in his last home³⁴⁴.

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector’s shade,

We are, however, enabled to open another chapter of evidence, that bears upon this interesting subject. It is obtained through the medium of the oaths of the two nations respectively.

Displacing the elemental powers from their ordinary religion, the Greeks made them gaolers, as it were, of the under-world, and gave them this for their proper business. Hence they are paraded freely in the Greek oaths³⁴⁵. Agamemnon before the Pact invokes, with Jupiter, the Sun, the Rivers, the Earth, the infernal gods. In the Nineteenth book, the same; omitting however the Rivers, and naming, instead of simply describing, the Erinües³⁴⁶. In the Fourteenth Iliad, Juno apparently swears by Styx, Earth, Sea, and the infernal gods³⁴⁷. In the Fifteenth, by Earth, Heaven, Styx, the head of Jupiter, and their marriage bed³⁴⁸. Calypso swears, for the satisfaction of Ulysses, and according to his fashion as the imponens, by Earth, Heaven, and Styx³⁴⁹. Thus the Greeks made an effective use of these earthy and material divinities, in connection with their large development of the Future State, by installing them as the official punishers of perjury. Now the Trojans appear, from what we have seen, to have worshipped this class of deities; but as super-terranean, not as sub-terranean gods. Had they not been thus worshipped at the least, Agamemnon could not have included them in the Invocation of the Pact, where he had to act and speak for both nations³⁵⁰. And while we see they sacrificed lambs to Earth and Sun, still we have a curious proof that these deities were not worshipped in Troy as avengers of perjury. For when in the Tenth Book Hector swears to Dolon, he invokes no divinity, except Jupiter the loud-thundering husband of Juno. There may, as we have seen here, be a faint reference to the earthy character of the Trojan Juno; but there is no well-developed system, which uses a particular order of powers for the punishment of perjurors in a future state. We can hardly doubt that this was primarily because the doctrine of the Future State was wanting in deep and practical roots, so far as we can see, among the Trojans. A materializing religion seems essentially hostile to the full development of such a doctrine. And it is not a little curious to find that in this same country, where the oath was less solemn than in Greece, and the life after death less a subject of practical and energetic belief, perjury and breach of faith should have been, as we shall find they were, so much more lightly regarded.

For the sake of realizing to ourselves the contrast between the religious system of Troy, as we thus at least by glimpses seem to perceive it, and the wonderful imaginative richness of the preternatural system of the Greeks as exhibited in Homer, it may be well to point briefly to a few cases, which are the more illustrative, because they are the accessories, and not the main pillars of the system. Take, then, the personifications of all the forms of Terror in the train of Mars: the transport, by Sleep and Death, of the body of Sarpedon to his home; the tears of blood wept by Jupiter; the agitation of the sea in sympathy with Neptune’s warlike parade; the dread of Aidoneus lest the crust of earth should give way under the tramp of the gods in battle; the mourning garb of Thetis for the friend of her son’s youth; the long train of Nymphs, rising from the depths of the sea to accompany her, when she mounts to visit the sorrowing Achilles; the redundant imagery of the nether world; the inimitable tact with which he preserves the identity of his great chieftains when visited below, but presents each under a deep tint of sadness. All this makes us feel not only that war, policy, and poetry, are indissolubly blended in the great mind of Homer, and of his race, but that the harmonious association of all these with the Olympian religion was the work of a vivifying imagination, which was a peculiar and splendid part of their inheritance.

Worship from the hills.

There is a more marked trace in the Trojan worship, than is to be found among the Greeks, of the practice of the Persian; who paid homage to the Deity,

 
To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops,
With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow³⁵¹.
 

For Hector offered to Jupiter sometimes (which may be referred to a different cause) on the highest ground of the city, sometimes on the tops of Ida³⁵²:

 
Ἴδης ἐν κορυφῇσι πολυπτύχου, ἀλλότε δ’ αὖτε
ἐν πόλει ἀκροτάτῃ.
 

At all events we may say, that the only sign remaining in Greece of this principle of worship, was one common to it with Troy, and seen in the epithet ὑψίζυγος applied to Jupiter, as well as in the association between the seats of the gods, and the highest mountains.

On the other hand, the religion of the Trojans appears to have abounded more in positive observance and hierarchical development, than that of the Greeks.

This subject may be considered with reference to the several subjects of

1. Temples.

2. Endowments (τεμένεα).

3. Groves.

4. Statues.

5. Seers or Prophets.

6. The Priesthood.

Troy and Greece as to Temples.

It has been debated, whether the Greeks of the Homeric age had yet begun to erect temples to the gods.

The only case of a temple, distinctly and expressly mentioned as existing in Greece, is in the passage of the Catalogue respecting the Athenians, on which there hangs a slight shade of doubt. But another passage, though it does not contain the word, seems to be conclusive as to the thing. It is that where Achilles mentions treasures, which lie within the stony threshold of Apollo at Pytho³⁵³:

 
οὐδ’ ὅσα λάϊνος οὐδὸς ἀφήτορος ἐντὸς ἐέργει,
Φοίβου Ἀπόλλωνος, Πυθοῖ ἔνι πετρήεσσῃ.
 

Though there may have been treasuries which were not temples, they could hardly have been treasuries of the gods: for in what sense could treasures be placed under their special protection, unless by being deposited in places which were peculiarly theirs?

In the Odyssey, Eurylochus promises to build a temple to the Sun, on getting safe to Ithaca³⁵⁴; and Nausithous³⁵⁵, the father of Alcinous, built temples of the gods in Scheria. Now Scheria was not Greece; yet it was more akin to Greece than to Troy.

It is, on the other hand, observable that, though under these circumstances we can hardly deny that temples existed among the Greeks, yet we have no case in Homer of a temple actually erected to a purely Hellic deity.

Our clear instances are, in fact, confined to the temples of Minerva at Troy and Athens, and the temples of Apollo at Troy, Chryse³⁵⁶, and Pytho: and when we see old Nestor performing solemn sacrifice in the open air at Pylos, himself, too, a reputed grandchild of Neptune, we cannot suppose that it was usual with the Hellenes to worship Hellenic gods in temples. It is possible, though I would not presume to say more, that Apollo and Minerva may have been the only deities to whom it was usual in that age to erect temples, whether in Greece or Troy.

I must not, however, presume to dismiss this subject without noticing the line, Od. vi. 266;

ἔνθα δέ τέ σφ’ ἀγορὴ, καλὸν Ποσιδήϊον ἄμφις.

This verse is often interpreted as ‘the place of assembly round about the beautiful temple of Neptune.’ So Eustathius³⁵⁷: so one of the scholiasts: the other interprets it to mean a τέμενος only. Nitzsch, Terpstra³⁵⁸ and Crusius take it for a temple. The word Ποσιδήϊον without a substantive is a form found nowhere else in Homer: so that we have only the aid of reason to interpret it. Now, this ἀγορὴ was the place of the public assemblies for business. It is surely improbable, that there could have been a roofed temple in the midst of it, which would interrupt both sight and hearing. On the other hand, we know that before Troy the altars were in the ἀγορὴ of the camp³⁵⁹: and this would cause no inconvenience. It would seem then, that Ποσιδήϊον means not a covered temple, but a consecrated spot, in all likelihood inclosed, on which an altar stood.

I would not, however, argue absolutely upon the word νηὸν, in cases where it is found without a word signifying to construct, or other signs marking it as a building. For its resemblance to νήϊον raises the question, whether it may not originally have meant the consecrated land which passed under the name of τέμενος. If so, it may have had this sense in a passage like that of the Catalogue; where the epithet joined to it (ἑῷ ἐνὶ πίονι νηῷ) is one more suitable to the idea of a piece of ground, than of a temple; though applicable by Homeric usage to the latter too, and though sufficiently supported by μάλα πίονος ἐξ ἀδύτοιο. (Il. v. 512.)

2. The derivation of τέμενος is supposed, by some philologists, to be the same with that of templum. And if so, there is a marked analogy between this association and that of νηόν with νήϊον. Each would seem to indicate the customs of a race, which had both dedicated lands and a priesthood, before it began to raise sacred edifices.

As to endowments in land.

As respects the endowment in land, which was sometimes consecrated to the gods, and was called τέμενος, I presume we must conclude that, wherever such an endowment was found, there must have been a priesthood supported by it. For it is difficult to conceive what other purpose could have been contemplated, at such a time, by such an appropriation of land. And again we may assume that, where the τέμενος or glebe existed, there would be if not a temple yet at least an altar, something which localized the worship in the particular spot.

It is indeed much more easy to suppose a temple without a priesthood, than a glebe. And here it is again remarkable, that we meet with no example in Homer of a glebe set apart for an exclusively Hellic god.

The cases of glebes, with which he supplies us, are these:

1. Of Ceres, a Pelasgian deity, in Thessaly, Il. ii. 696;

2. Of Jupiter, on Mount Gargarus in Troas, together with an altar, Il. viii. 48;

3. Of Venus, a Pelasgian deity, at Paphos in Cyprus, with an altar, Od. viii. 362;

4. Of Spercheius in Thessaly, with an altar, Il. xxiii. 148. As respects this case, we have indeed found, that the imaginative deification of Nature appears to have been Hellenic, and not Pelasgian. Still, with the case of Scamander before us, and considering that we find the τέμενος attached to Spercheius in an eminently Pelasgian district, while there is no example of such an inheritance for the deities among the Hellic tribes, it seems most rational to consider the appropriation of it as belonging to the Pelasgian period, and as having simply lived over into the Hellenic age.

3. The ἄλσος of Homer appears to be quite different from the τέμενος: and to mean rather what we should call a site for religious worship, as distinguished from an endowment which, as such, would produce the means of subsistence. Such places were required by the spirit of Hellenic religion, as much as by the Pelasgian worship, and we find them accordingly disseminated as follows: we have

1. In Scheria, the ἄλσος of Minerva, Od. vi. 291, 321.

2. At Ismarus, the ἄλσος of Apollo, in which dwelt Maron the priest, Od. ix. 200.

3. In Ithaca, the ἄλσος of the Nymphs, with an altar, beside the fountain, where all passers-by offered sacrifice, Od. xvii. 205-11.

4. In Ithaca again, the ἄλσος of Apollo, where public sacrifice was performed in the city on his feast-day, Od. xx. 277, 8.

5. In Bœotia, Onchestus is called the ἄγλαον ἄλσος of Neptune, Il. ii. 506.

6. The ἄλσεα of Persephone are on the beach beyond Oceanus, and are composed of poplars and willows, Od. x. 509.

7. In the great Assembly of gods before the Theomachy, all the Nymphs are summoned, who inhabit ἄλσεα as well as fountains and meadows, Il. xx. 8. But here the meaning includes any grove, dedicated or not. And again,

8. The attendants of Circe are such as inhabit ἄλσεα, groves, or fountains, or rivers, Od. x. 350.

Thus the ἄλσος, when used in the religious sense, means a grove or clump of trees, sometimes with turf, or with a fountain; set apart as a place for worship, and inhabited by a deity or his ministers, yet quite distinct from a property capable of supporting them. These clumps appear to be so appropriated more commonly by Hellenic, than by Pelasgian practice.

As to statues of the gods.

4. We will take next the case of statues of the gods.

In the opinion of Mure, the metaphor which represents human affairs as resting in the lap of the gods (θεῶν ἐν γούνασι), gives conclusive evidence that the custom of making statues of the deities prevailed among the Greeks. I do not however see why this particular figure should bear upon the question, more than any of the other very numerous representations which treat them as endowed with various members of the body. If this evidence be receivable at all, it is overwhelming. But it is open to some doubt, whether, because gods are mentally conceived according to the laws of anthropomorphism, we may therefore assume that they were also materially represented under the human form.

We have, I believe, no more than one single piece of direct evidence on the subject, and it is this; that, when the Trojan matrons carry their supplication to the temple of Minerva, together with the offering of a robe, they deposit it on her knees (Il. vi. 303), Ἀθηναίης ἐπὶ γούνασιν ἠϋκόμοιο. This appears to be quite conclusive as to the existence of a statue of Minerva at Troy: but it leaves the question entirely open, whether it was an Hellenic, as well as a Pelasgian, practice thus to represent the gods.

It is quite plain, I think, that the practice was not one congenial or familiar to the mind of Homer. Had it been so, he surely must have made large poetic use of it. Whereas on the contrary it is by inference alone, though certainly by unavoidable inference, from language which he uses without that intention, that we become assured even of their existence in his time. He speaks, indeed, more than once of placing ἀγάλματα in temples, or of suspending them in honour of the gods³⁶⁰: but our title to construe this of statues appears to be wholly conjectural.

It would seem inexplicable that a poet, who enlarges with so much power, not only on the Shield of Agamemnon and the Arms of Achilles, but on the ideal Ægis of Minerva, the chariot of Juno, the bow of Apollo, and the metallic handmaids of Vulcan, should entirely avoid description of the statues of the Olympian gods, if they were habitually before his eyes.

I have argued elsewhere that we see in Homer the Hellenic, not the Pelasgian, mind. And if it be so, then I think we are justified in associating with his Hellenism, as one among many signs, this remarkable silence. The ritual and external development of Pelasgian religion would delight in statues as visible signs: the Hellenic idealism would not improbably eschew them. Hence we may treat this practice of the period as belonging to Pelasgian peculiarities.

If this be so, then I think we may pass on to the conclusion, that the original tendency to produce visible forms of the Divinity was not owing to, and formed no part of, the efforts of the human imagination, so largely developed in Homer, to idealize religion, and to beautify the world by its imagery. But, on the contrary, so far as we can judge from Homer, it first prevailed among a race inclined to material and earthy conceptions in theology, and from them it spread to others of higher intelligence. It was a crutch for the lameness of man, and not a wing for his upward aspirations.

And indeed, as it appears to me, this proposition is sustained even by the past experience and present state of Christendom. When faith was strongest, images were unknown to the faithful. Nor is it art, which produces them: it is merely a kind of corporal and mechanical imitation. No considerable work of art is at this moment, I believe, in any Christian country, an object of religious worship. The sentiment which craves for material representations of such objects in order to worship them, appears also commonly to exact that they should be somewhat materialized. The higher office of art, in connection with devout affection, seems to be that it should point our veneration onwards, not arrest it. It holds out the finger which we are to follow, not the hand which we are to kiss.

As to Seers or Diviners.

The order of Seers or Diviners was common to Greeks, Trojans, and probably we may add, from its being known among the Cyclopes, to all contemporary races. It is singular that we should find here, and not among the priesthood, the traces of caste, or the hereditary descent of the gift. In all other points, this function stands apart from hierarchical developments. For the μάντις, except as to his gift, is like other men. Melampus engages to carry off oxen. Polypheides migrates upon a quarrel with his father. Cleitus is the lover of Aurora. Theoclymenus has committed homicide³⁶¹. Teiresias is called ἄναξ, a lord or prince³⁶². We do not know that Calchas fought as well as prophesied, but it may have been so, since Helenus, the son of Priam, and Eunomus, the Mysian leader, were seers or augurs not less than warriors. But the most instructive specimen of this order among the Greeks is the Suitor Leiodes³⁶³, who was also θυοσκόος, or inspector of sacrifices, to the body of Suitors. Now Ulysses had, in consideration of a ransom, spared Maron the priest of Apollo at Ismarus³⁶⁴. But, far from recognising in the professional character of Leiodes a title to immunity, he answers the plea with characteristic and deadly repartee. And this, notwithstanding that Leiodes was, as we learn, distinguished from the rest of the Suitors by the general decency of his conduct.

The θυοσκόος apparently inspected sacrifices, but did not offer them; for this character is clearly distinguished in the Iliad³⁶⁵ from that of the priest. Indeed, the word θύειν in Homer appears properly to apply to those minor offices of sacrifice, which did not involve the putting to death of victims; as in Il. ix. 219, where, it may be observed, the function is not performed by the principal person, but is deputed by Achilles to Patroclus. The inspection of slain animals would probably stand in the same category, among divine offices, as the interpretation of other signs and portents.

The members of this class are, upon the whole, as broadly distinguished from the priests in Homer, as are the prophets of the Old Testament from the Levitical priesthood.

They were called by the general name of μάντις, or by other names, some of them more limited: such as θεόπροπος, ὑποφήτης, οἰωνόπολος, ὀνειρόπολος. They sometimes interpreted from signs and omens; sometimes, as in Il. vi. 86, and vii. 44, without them.

The diffusion of the gift among the royal house of Troy, where Polydamas had it as well as Helenus, and possibly also Hector, is less marked than the great case of the family of Melampus. The augur was in all respects a citizen, while possessed of a peculiar endowment: and the ὑποφῆται³⁶⁶ mentioned in the invocation of Achilles, whether they were the royal house, or persons dispersed through the community, evidently formed a more conspicuous object among the Helli than we find in any Pelasgian race. Again; in Greece we find the oracles of Delphi and Delos, as well as of Dodona; but there is no similar organ for the delivery of the divine will reported to us in Troy.

As to the Priesthood.

We come now to the last and most important point connected with the outward development of the religious system, that of the priesthood: and here I shall endeavour to describe distinctly the evidence with regard to both nations. First, let us consider the case of priesthood as it respects the Greeks.

We have at least one instance before us in the Iliad, where a combined religious action of Greeks and Trojans is presented to us. In the Third Book, Priam comes from Troy to an open space between the armies, and meets Agamemnon and Ulysses. The honour of actually offering the sacrifice is allotted to the Greeks. No priest appears; and the function is performed by the King, Agamemnon. It is therefore natural to suppose that the Greeks have with them in Troas no sacrificing priest. On every occasion, the Greek Sovereign offers sacrifice for himself and for the army. So also do the soldiery³⁶⁷ at large for themselves;

ἄλλος δ’ ἄλλῳ ἔρεζε θεῶν αἰειγενετάων.

There was an altar³⁶⁸ for the very purpose in the part of the camp appropriated for Assemblies; a fact which, though it does not demonstrate, accords with the union of the regal and sacerdotal functions. Nor can we account for the absence of priests from the camp, on the same principle as for that of bards; since poems were a luxury, but sacrifices a necessity. And we find Calchas representing the class of religious functionaries that the Greek nation did acknowledge; namely, the Seers, who interpreted the divine will, without any fixed ministry belonging to any particular place, although the gift was generally derived from Apollo, as one among his peculiar attributes.

In the remarkable passage, which enumerates for us the principal trades and professions of Greece in the heroic age³⁶⁹, we find mentioned the prophet, the physician, the artificer, the divinely prompted bard; but not the priest. Yet, had such an order existed, it could not well, on account of its importance, have been omitted. For in truth this enumeration is, as we have before seen, nearly exhaustive, as applied to an age when there was no professional soldier, when the husbandman, fisherman, or herd, could not be called a δημιοεργὸς, for he had no relation to the public, and when commerce was confined to foreigners like the Phœnicians, or pirates like the Taphians, and formed no part of the business of the settled communities of Greece.

On the other hand, in the Legend of Phœnix concerning Meleager, we have a notice of priests as having existed at that time in Ætolia. The embassy, which was sent to conciliate Meleager, consisted of elders and of the best, or most distinguished, among the priests;

 
τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες
Αἰτωλῶν, πέμπον δὲ θεῶν ἱερῆας ἀρίστους. Il. ix. 574.
 

Now, the word Αἰτωλὸς, I apprehend, indicates an Hellenic race, for Tydeus is Αἰτώλιος; and it is worth notice, that in this passage the elders are called Ætolian, but not the priests.

Again, this event took place during the reign of Œneus, two generations before the Trojan war³⁷⁰. At that time the Hellenic influence was quite recent in Middle and in Southern Greece. The family of Sisyphus had indeed arrived there at least two generations before, but it disappeared, and it had never risen to great power. It was the date of Augeias, of Neleus, and of Pelops; all of them, apparently, the first of their respective families in Peloponnesus. So again the name Portheus, assigned to the father of Œneus, probably marks him as the first Hellenic occupant of the country.

Plato observes, that new settlers might naturally remain for a time without religious institutions³⁷¹ of their own.

The Hellenes, then, had recently come into Ætolia at the time, and even on this ground were less likely to have had priests of their own institution. But it is not to be supposed that, finding a hierarchy among the Pelasgian tribes, devoted to the worship of such deities (Minerva and Apollo for example) as they themselves acknowledged, they would extirpate such a body. The most probable supposition is, that it would continue in all cases for a time. The person of Chryses, the priest of Apollo, was respected, at least for the moment, even by Agamemnon³⁷² in his displeasure. Fearless of his threats, the injured priest immediately appealed to his god for aid. We cannot doubt that interests thus defended would be generally left intact. Still, as priests were, in the language of political economy, unproductive labourers, and as they seem to have held their offices not by descent but by election, we can easily perceive a road, other than that of violence, to the extinction of the order among a people that set no store by its services.