Marvelous is the vitality of mythology. Indissoluble is its connection with the art and culture which sprang from it. Long after it has died as religion it lives on in poetry, retaining its original quality, though the theology contained in it has been forever superseded or absorbed into more spiritual creeds."

THE HOMERIC PERIOD.

CHAPTER IV.

The Story of the Iliad.

History, like Nature, "knows no lines." Between the mythical and the authentic there is no well defined boundary. Each nation has had its myth-forming period, and this period continually shades over into the definitely historic. There is no doubt that there existed in many countries previous to the Homeric Age a large literature, much of it in a loose, uncrystallized condition, floating fragments, not put together in compact form. In India, Egypt, Persia, Chaldea and Judea such literatures existed. Of these the book of Job, coming at least 1500 B. C., was, without doubt, the greatest, the most concentrated and artistic, but as this cessible to every student, it will be omitted here.

poem

is ac

The Vedas of India are believed to be as old as 2000 B. C. They taught one all-powerful Creator, omnipresent, true, unknown. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead" deals with the prayers of the people of that nation, the nature of their deities and the relation of man to nature and the higher powers. Among the Persians, the Zend Avesta, compiled by Zoroaster, was the oldest literary monument. There is an abundance of evidence that all of these have had an influence in shaping modern thought. But since the Greek is so largely incorporated into nearly all later classics that almost every great piece of modern writing presupposes an intimate knowledge of Hellenic thought, we will pass on

The Greeks called their country Hellas, and not Greece. The Cambunian mountains separated it on the north from Macedonia; the Thracian Sea and the Egæan lay on the east of it, and the Ionian to the west. It extends into the Mediterranean in the form of a hand, in whose palm is an elevated plateau, Arcadia, and through each finger is a line of hills. It is 250 miles from the Cambunian mountains to the sea, and 180 miles from east to west. That it had so many indentations and such a multitude of islands around its coast accounts for the freedom of its people, and their civilization.

It is probable that branches of the Aryan family settled in Greece as early as 2000 B. C.; that a more vigorous branch, the Hellenes, overwhelmed them, and gave their own name to the country; that the Hellenes consisted of four classes-the Dorians, Eolians, Acheæns, and Ionians-the Dorians, according to the Homeric poems, occupying the northern part, the Eolians the southwestern part, the Achæans the southeastern, and the Ionians the northern coast of the peninsula.

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as rapidly as possible to the poems of Homer, where we shall study not from dictionaries of mythology, but from the original sources, whence makers of dictionaries draw their information, not only the myth, but also much that is history; and if, by the foregoing pages, our minds have been aroused to the importance of this study and the questions it involves, we shall look for the evidences of the origin of mythology, and for the beauty in them, while we learn to separate the history from the myth, and to recognize the habits of the people as well as their ideals.

Periods of
Greek Litera-

"It is common to divide the history of Greek literature into three chief periods; the first embracing the early growth of poetry and prose, before the age in which Athens became ture, according supreme in Hellas-that is, anterior to 480 B. C.; to Symonds. the second coinciding with the brilliant maturity of Greek genius during the supremacy of Athens-that is, from the termination of the Persian war to the age of Alexander; the third extending over the decline and fall of the Greek spirit after Alexander's death-that is, from B. C. 323, and onwards to the final extinction of Hellenic civilization. There is much to be said in favor of this division. Indeed, Greek history falls naturally into these three sections. But a greater degree of accuracy may be obtained by breaking up the first and last of these divisions, so as to make five periods, instead of three. The first may be termed the Heroic, or Prehistoric, or Legendary period. It ends with the first Olympiad,* B. C. 776, and its chief monuments are the epics of Homer and Hesiod.

The great name of Homer covers the whole of the first period of Greek literature. It is from the Homeric poems alone that we can form a picture to the imagination of the state of society in prehistoric Hellas. The picture which they present is so

*Olympiad, the year in which the Olympic Festival was held. This occurred for the first time in the year 776 B. C. The festival was celebrated once in four years in the plain of Olympia, in honor of Jupiter.

Literature the

best vehicle for history.

lively in its details, and so consistent in all its parts, that we have no reason to suspect that it was drawn from fancy. Its ideal, as distinguished from merely realistic character, is obvious. The poet professes to sing to us of heroes who were the sons of gods, whose strength exceeded tenfold the strength of actual men, and who filled the world with valiant deeds surpassing all that their posterity achieved. Yet, in spite of this, the Iliad and Odyssey may be taken as faithful mirrors of a certain phase of Greek society, just as the Niebelungen Lied,* the romances of Charlemagne, † and the tales of the Round Table reflect three stages in the history of feudalism. We find that in this earliest period of Greek history the nation was governed by monarchs, each of whom claimed descent from a god. Thus the kings exercised their power over people by divine right, but at the same time a neccessary condition of their maintaining this supremacy was that they should be superior in riches, lands, personal bravery and wisdom. Their subjects obeyed them not merely because they were the 'sons of gods,' or because they were fathers of the people, but also, and chiefly, because they were the ablest men, the men fitted by nature to rule, the men who could be depended on in an emergency. The king had just so much personal authority as he had the abliity to acquire or assert. As soon as this ability failed, the scepter departed from him. Thus Laertest over-lives his royalty, and the suitors of Penelope, fancying that Ulysses is dead, take no heed of Telemachus, who ought to rule in his stead, because Telemachus is a mere lad; but as soon as the hero returns, and proves his might by stringing the bow, the suitors are slain like sheep. Again, Achilles, while acknowledging the sway of Agamemnon, quarrels with him openly, proving his equality and right to such independence as he can assert for himself. The bond between the king in the heroic age and his chieftains was founded on the personal superiority of their lord, and upon

*Niebelungen Lied (pronounced Nee-bel-oong'-en Leed), the great early German epic poem.

+Charlemagne (Charles the Great), was born in the year 742 A. D. He was the sovereign of the Western Empire, which included Germany, France, a part of Spain and Italy, &c., &c.

Laertes, the father of Ulysses and grandfather of Telemachus.