THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. ing those features in the legend which mani- for an historical thread to connect the Baotian legends of Hercules with those of Peloponnesus, it must be set entirely aside; and yet it is not only the oldest form of the story, but no other has hitherto been found or devised to fill its place with a greater appearance of probability. The supposed right of Hercules to the throne of Mycenae was, as we shall see, the ground on which the Dorians, some generations later, claimed the dominion of Peloponnesus. Yet, in any other than a poetical view, his enmity to Eurystheus is utterly inconsistent with the exploits ascribed to him in the peninsula. It is also remarkable, that while the adventures which he undertakes at the bidding of his rival The name of Hercules immediately suggests are prodigious and supernatural, belonging to the first of the two classes above distinguished, he is described as during the same period engaged in expeditions which are only accidental- that of Theseus, according to the mythical ly connected with these marvellous labours, and chronology his younger contemporary, and only which, if they stood alone, might be taken for second to him in renown. It was not without traditional facts. In these he appears in the reason that Theseus was said to have given light of an independent prince and a powerful rise to the proverb, another Hercules; for not conqueror. He leads an army against Augeas, only is there a strong resemblance between king of Elis, and having slain him, bestows his them in many particular features, but it also kingdom on one of his sons, who had condemn- seems clear that Theseus was to Attica what ed his father's injustice. So he invades Pylus Hercules was to the rest of Greece, and that to avenge an insult which he had received from his career likewise represents the events of a Neleus, and puts him to death, with all his chil- period which cannot have been exactly measdren, except Nestor, who was absent, or had ured by any human life, and probably includes escaped to Gerenia. Again he carries his con- many centuries. His legend is chiefly interestquering arms into Laconia, where he extermi-ing to us so far as it may be regarded as a ponates the family of the King Hippocoon, and etical outline of the early history of Attica. The places Tyndareus on the throne. Here, if any- list which has been transmitted to us of the Atwhere in the legend of Hercules, we might seem tic kings, his predecessors, is a compilation in to be reading an account of real events. Yet which some of the names appear to have been who can believe that, while he was overthrow-invented merely to fill up a gap in chronology; ing these hostilé dynasties and giving away sceptres, he suffered himself to be excluded from his own kingdom? It was the fate of Hercules to be incessantly VOL. L-K ical. Their reigns are no less barren of events as captives consecrated to the god, who, by famine and pestilence, had compelled the Athenians to propitiate him with this sacrifice.* With the aid of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, he vanquished the monster of the labyrinth, and retraced its mazes; but on his homeward voyage he abandoned his fair guide on the shore at Naxus, where, as poets sang, she was con he became the father of four sons; but the legitimacy of Egeus, the eldest, was disputed; and when, after the death of Pandion, he entered Attica at the head of an army, recovered his patrimony from the usurpers, and shared it with his brothers, he was still the object of their jealousy. As he was long childless, they began to cast a wishful eye towards his inheritance. But a mysterious oracle brought him to Tree-soled by Dionysus for the loss of her mortal zen, where fate had decreed that the future hero of Athens should be born. Ethra, the daughter of the sage King Pittheus, son of Pelops, was his mother; but the Trazenian legend called Poseidon, not Ægeus, his father. Egeus, however, returned to Athens with the hope that, in the course of years, he should be followed by a legitimate heir. At parting, he showed thra a huge mass of rock, under which he had hidden a sword and a pair of sandals when her child, if a boy, should be able to lift the stone, he was to repair to Athens with the tokens it concealed, and to claim Egeus as his father. From this deposite, Ethra gave her son the name of Theseus. lover. At Delos, too, he left memorials of his presence in sacred and festive rites, which were preserved with religious reverence in after ages. His arrival at Athens proved fatal to Egeus, who was deceived by the black sail of the victim-ship, which Theseus had forgotten to exchange for the concerted token of victory, and in despair threw himself down from the Cecropian rock: his memory was honoured by the Athenians with yearly sacrifices, of which the house of the Phytalids were appointed hereditary ministers. Many cheerful festivals long commemorated the return of Theseus, and the plenty which was restored to Attica when the wrath of the gods was finally appeased by his enterprise. He himself was believed to have opened the vintage procession of the Oschophoria, with two youths, who had accompanied him in disguise among the virgins, and to have instituted the harvest feast of the Pyanepsia, when the Eiresioné (an olive branch laden with the fruits of the year, cakes, and figs, and flasks of honey, oil, and wine) was carried about in honour of the sun and the seasons. The life of Theseus is composed of three main acts, his journey from Trozen to Athens, his victory over the Minotaur, and the political revolution which he effected in Attica. The former two achievements, notwithstanding their fabulous aspect, have probably an historical ground, no less than the third, as to which it can only be doubted how far it was the work of one individual. Instead of crossing the Saronic Gulf when he at length set out to Of the political institutions ascribed to Theclaim the throne of Athens, the young hero re- seus we shall find a fitter occasion of speaking solved to signalize his journey by clearing the hereafter, and we must pass over a great numwild road that skirted the sea, which was ber of other adventures which adorn his legend; haunted by monsters and savage men, who though some of them, as the war in which he is abused their gigantic strength in wrong and said to have repelled the invasion of the Amarobbery, and had almost broken off all inter- zons, may not be wholly destitute of historical course between Træzen and Attica. In the import. We can only spare room for a few reterritory of Epidaurus he won the brazen mace marks on those broader features of the legend with which Periphetes had been wont to sur- which we have here noticed. That part of it prise the unwary passenger. In the Isthmus which relates to the journey from Trazen he made Sinis undergo the same fate with his seems to be grounded on the fact that the victims, whom he had rent to pieces between coasts of the Saronic Gulf were early occupied two pines; and he celebrated this victory by by kindred tribes of the Ionian race. Hence renewing the Isthmian games, which had been Poseidon, the great Ionian deity, is the father founded in honour of the sea-god Palæmon, and of Theseus, as the national hero: the name of were sacred to Poseidon. Before he left the Egeus was probably no more than an epithet Isthmus, he did not disdain to exert his strength of the same god. The journey of Theseus, in destroying the wild sow of Crommyon. In however, must signify something more than a the territory of Megara he was again stopped mere national relation; for its prominent feaat a narrow pass hewn in a cliff, from which ture is a successful struggle with some kind of Sciron delighted to thrust wayfaring men into obstacles. It may, perhaps, be best explained the waves. Theseus purified the accursed by the supposition that a period was rememrock by hurling the tyrant down its side, and bered when the union of the Ionian tribes of cleared the Scironian road of dangers and ob- Attica and the opposite coast of Peloponnesus stacles. So, still struggling and conquering- was cemented by the establishment of periodfor even in Eleusis and in Attica he met with ical meetings, sacred to the national god, not fresh antagonists-he forced his way to the without opposition and interruption. The lebanks of the Cephisus, where he was first wel- gend seems likewise to indicate that, during comed and purified from all this bloodshed by the same period, perhaps as an effect of the the hospitable Phytalids. Recognised by Egeus, troubles which were thus composed, a change he crushed a conspiracy of his kinsmen, who took place in the ruling dynasty at Athens, viewed him as an intruder; and then sailed to This appears to be implied by the tradition that Crete, to deliver Attica from the yoke of Minos, Egeus and Theseus were strangers to the line who, every ninth year, exacted a tribute of of Erechtheus. Both came from Megara to Athenian youths and virgins, and doomed them take possession of Attica; and the accounts to perish in the jaws of the Minotaur. This that Pandion fled from Athens to reign in Mewas the more tragic story: according to anoth-gara, and that Theseus, when he bad mounted er tradition, they were only detained in Crete Plut., Thes., 16. THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. the throne, added Megara to his dominions, may be considered as expressing the same fact in an inverted order. But there seems to be no sufficient ground for referring any of these traditions to a migration by which the Ionians first became masters of Attica." were of Cretan origin. These settlements, though they are commonly referred either directly or indirectly to Minos, may easily be conceived to have been the work of more than one question which they raise is, to what race Migeneration. The more interesting and difficult The legend of the Cretan expedition, most nos and his people belong? It is interesting, probably, also preserves some genuine histori- because, according to a common opinion, this cal recollections. But the only fact which ap- people possessed institutions which subsequentpears to be plainly indicated by it is a tem-ly became the model of those of Sparta; but porary connexion between Crete and Attica. there are few questions which perplex the inWhether this intercourse was grounded solely quirer more by the conflict of reasons and auon religion, or was the result of a partial do- thorities. We must briefly direct the reader's By Homer, Minos is described as the son of minion exercised by Crete over Athens, it attention to what seem to be the most imporwould be useless to inquire; and still less can tant points in the inquiry. we pretend to determine the nature of the Athenian tribute, or that of the Cretan worship Jupiter and of the daughter of Phoenix,* whom to which it related. That part of the legend all succeeding authors name Europa; and he is which belongs to Naxos and Delos was proba- thus carried back into the remotest period of bly introduced after these islands were occu- Cretan antiquity known to the poet, apparently pied by the Ionians. But the part assigned in as a native hero, illustrious enough for a divine these traditions to Minos, leads us to inquire a parentage, and too ancient to allow his descent little farther into the character and actions of to be traced to any other source. But in a this celebrated personage, who is represented genealogy recorded by later writers, he is likeby the general voice of antiquity as having rais-wise the adopted son of Asterius, a descended Crete to a higher degree of prosperity and ant of Dorus the son of Hellen, and is thus conpower than it ever reached at any subsequent nected with a colony said to have been led into period. Minos appears in the twofold charac- Crete by Teutamus, or Tectamus, son of Doter of a victorious prince, who exercises a salu- rus, who is related either to have crossed over tary dominion over the sea and the neighbour- from Thessaly, or to have embarked at Malea ing islands, and of a wise and just lawgiver, after having led his followers by land into LaThis somewhat marvellous migration, who exhibits to Greece the first model of a well-conia. It is his son Asterius who marries ordered state. In his former capacity he unites Europa, and leaves his kingdom to her son Mithe various tribes of Greece under his sceptre, raises a great navy, scours the gean, and though not expressly mentioned by any very subdues the piratical Carians and Leleges, weighty author, seems to be indirectly recogmakes himself master of the Cyclades, and nised by the testimony of Homer himself, who, plants various colonies, undertakes a success- in the Odyssey, describes the mixed population ful expedition against Megara and Attica, and of Crete as composed of Achæans, Eteocretes imposes tribute, as we have seen, on his van-(genuine Cretans), and Cydonians; to whom quished enemies: he is even said to have carried his arms into Sicily, where, indeed, he is cut off by treachery, and his fleet destroyed; yet his people remain there, and found a settlement which preserves his name. The leading strokes in this outline are confirmed by the concurrent testimony of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aristotle, and by a crowd of independent traditions; nor does there seem to be any reason to think that it greatly exaggerates the truth. Crete, observes Aristotle, seems formed by nature, and fitted by its geographical position, for the command of Greece; and, indeed, the insignificance to which it was reduced during the historical period, is more extraordinary than the transient lustre which falls upon it in the myth-gious institutions which are commonly referred ical ages. The dominion of the Cyclades was an almost indispensable condition of the naval power attributed to Minos, and the tradition that they were subject to his rule is confirmed by numerous traces. Two of their towns, as well as the Isle of Paros, are said to have borne the name of Minoa. But Cretan colonies were un-of Troas, where he reigned, undoubtedly long doubtedly spread much farther over the islands and coasts of the Mediterranean, as in Chios and Rhodes,† in Caria and Lycia, and even in Lemnos and Thrace; and, according to a legend adopted by Virgil, the Teucrians of Troas ⚫ Pol., ii., 10. Apollod, ii., 2, 1. Diod., v., 59, 79; and Hoeck, Kreta, vol. ii., p. 215-394. before the time of Homer, over Chryse and slight evidence will be left for the Dorian colony of Tectamus. The passage of the Odyssey is by no means conclusive. The poet knew of Dorians in Crete in his own day; and even if he was aware that their settlements were comparatively recent, he might not scruple to complete his description by enumerating them with the other inhabitants of the island. Indeed, if he had the age of Ulysses in view, and had ever heard of Cnossus as the capital of a Dorian state, to which the rest of Crete was subject in the reign of Minos, he would scarcely have thrown the different races so indiscriminately together. Yet this passage was probably the occasion of the story about the colony of Tectamus; and the epithet given to the Dortans seems to have suggested the fiction that Minos divided the island into three districts, and founded a city in each.* tara, near the mouth of the Xanthus, in Lycia, then, this argument should appear to fail, very which appear to have been all connected with Cretan settlements. A very early intercourse between Crete and the Delphic oracle is intimated by one of the Homeric hymns, in which Apollo himself is introduced conducting a band of Cretans, who came from Cnossus, the city of Minos, to Crissa, and to his sanctuary at the foot of Parnassus, where he constitutes them his ministers. And the substance of this legend seems to be confirmed both by the name of Crissa, and by other similar traditions; as that the Cretan Chrysothemis was the first who won the meed of poetry at Delphi, by a hymn in honour of the god, and that his father Carmanor had purified Apollo and Artemis after they had slain the Python.* Even the Athenian tribute, and the Cretan expedition of Theseus, present some features which appear to indicate an affinity with the religion of Delphi. The number of seven youths and seven virgins is the same If, however, Minos and his people are not to as that with which the wrath of Apollo and Ar- be considered as Dorians, it appears to follow temis was anciently propitiated at Sicyon; that the political institutions of Minos can have and, according to Aristotle, the descendants of been but very slightly connected with those the Athenian captives, who were not sacrificed, which afterward existed in the Dorian states but only detained in Crete to the end of their of Crete, and we therefore reserve our descriplives in sacred servitude, were afterward sent tion of the latter for the period when they were to Delphi with a company of other hierodules, most probably first introduced into the island. whom the Cretans, in fulfilment of an ancient In this respect no reliance can safely be placed Vow, dedicated to the service of Apollo. The- on the authority of those ancient writers who seus, too, is said to have led a suppliant proces-represent Minos as having furnished a model sion to the temple of the same god at Athens, which was imitated by Lycurgus. The Cretan before he embarked on his voyage to Crete; Dorians, who found the fame of Minos as a and, according to the Athenian tradition, it was powerful king, a wise lawgiver, and a righteous to discharge a vow which he made on his re-judge, widely spread over their new country, turn, that the sacred vessel called the Theoris sailed every year from Athens with offerings for the altar of Apollo at Delos. § may naturally have been inclined to attach so glorious a name to their own institutions. Nor need it be denied that there was an historical ground for this celebrity; but in a rude age small improvements in the frame of society might afford a sufficient foundation for it. Hence it may easily be believed that, as Aristotle seems to intimate,† several usages were here and there retained during the Dorian period, which had been transmitted from the time of Minos. On the other hand, it is extremely diffi such as was established in the Dorian states of Crete, could have been combined with that naval dominion which Minos is said to have acquired: the later colonists, indeed, are expressly related to have preferred inland situations; nor is it very intelligible how the people of Minos, if it was a detachment from a small tribe which was long unable to maintain its ground against its neighbours in Greece, could so early have undertaken foreign conquests, and have planted so many distant colonies. This will suffice to illustrate the nature of the arguments which have been drawn from the religious institutions of Crete, for the opinion that a Dorian colony existed there in the days of Minos. Their force is very much weakened, both by the great obscurity which hangs over the origin of all such institutions in Greece, and by some indications which point to a different conclusion. There is scarcely sufficient evi-cult to conceive that a system of government, dence that the Cretan settlers in Asia introduced that worship of Apollo which we find established in later times. But, even when this is admitted, it still remains uncertain how far this worship was ever peculiar to the Dorian race. On the other hand, though there are traces of a very ancient connexion between Crete and Delphi, it is by no means clear that the religion of Delphi was predominant in the island in the age of Minos; and the legend of Minos himself seems rather to belong to a totally different circle of mythology. The fables of his birth, and those of the mythical persons by whom he is surrounded-Europa and Pasipha, Ariadne and the Minotaur-transport us into a region wholly foreign to the worship of the Delphic god. Minos is a son of Jupiter, not, as a Dorian hero would probably have been represented, of Apollo; nor is it from Apollo, as the Spartan lawgiver, but from Jupiter, that he is said to have derived his political wisdom. If, It is not necessary that we should attempt to substitute a new hypothesis for the opinion which we found ourselves compelled to reject, But, if we might hazard a conjecture on the subject, we should be inclined to suspect that the maritime greatness of Crete belonged principally to the Phoenicians, with whom Minos appears, both from the common account of his origin, and from the general aspect of the legends concerning him, to have been much more nearly connected than with the Dorians. Not, however, as if Phoenicians had ever formed a 5 THE HEROES AND THEIR AGE. considerable part of the population of Crete. been pared down into an historical form, and its Our plan obliges us to pass over a great num- The Argonautic expedition, when viewed in Amslern author suspects that this was in reality a military expedition against some of the savage Etolian tribes, and that the name of one of them (the Aperanti) suggested the legend. Plass, i., p. 405. Though this is an artificial statement, framed to reconcile the main incidents of a wonderful story with nature and probability, it still contains many points which can scarcely be explained or believed. It carries us back to a period when navigation was in its infancy among the Greeks; yet their first essay at maritime discovery is supposed at once to have reached the extreme limit which was long after attained by the adventurers who gradually explored the same formidable sea, and gained a footing on its coasts. The success of the undertaking, however, is not so surprising as the project itself, for this implies a previous knowledge of the country to be explored, which it is very difexplained with the aid of a conjecture. Such ficult to account for. But the end proposed is still more mysterious, and, indeed, can only be an explanation was attempted by some of the later writers among the ancients, who perceived that the whole story turned on the golden fleece, the supposed motive of the voyage, and that this feature had not a sufficiently historical appearance. But the mountain torrents of Colwhich the natives used to detain by fleeces dipped in the streams. This report suggested a chis were said to sweep down particles of gold, mode of translating the fable into historical language. It was conjectured that the Argonauts had been attracted by the metallic treasures of the country, and that the golden fleece was a |