Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 3 of 3. Gladstone William Ewart
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Upon the footing supplied by these assumptions, I shall treat the comparison of the two countries as to religion, policy, social usages, and moral ideas and practice.
We have already been obliged, in considering the respective shares of the Hellenic and Pelasgian factors in the compound Greek character, to anticipate in some degree the conclusions with regard to the religion of the Trojans in its general character, which I will now proceed more fully to explain and illustrate.
We have found three conspicuous deities, of worship apparently supreme and universal: Jupiter, Minerva, and Apollo. After these comes Neptune, of a more doubtful position when we pass out of the Hellenic and Phœnician circles; and Latona with Diana, who, doubtless from the vantage ground of early tradition, take rank alike with an Hellenic and a Pelasgian people. We have also supposed Ceres to be of immemorial standing as a deity of the Pelasgians; and Venus to have made great way among them.
Greek names of deities found also in Troas.
Passing on from the consideration of Pelasgian religion at large, it will now be requisite to show, with particular reference to Troy, how far we find the names of the Greek divinities recognised there; nor must we omit to consider, in what degree identity of name implies identity of person and function.
1. Jupiter had a τέμενος, or portion of consecrated land, on Mount Gargarus; and there Onetor was his priest281. He is, with the Trojans as with the Greeks, the first and greatest of the gods282. He himself attests their abundant liberality in sacrifices offered to himself283. The Greek Jupiter is Olympian; the Trojan Jupiter is Jupiter of Ida. Except as to abode, there is no difference to be discerned between the features of the two.
2. We have no direct indication, in the Iliad, of the worship of Neptune by the Trojans. But the legend of his employment under Laomedon must be taken to imply that his divinity was acknowledged in that country: confirmed as it is by his sharing with Jupiter and Apollo the destruction of the Greek rampart after the conclusion of the war284.
3. In the case of Juno, I have elsewhere noticed285 the three passages, which alone appear to establish a faint connection between her and the Trojans.
4. Minerva had a temple on Pergamus; and was served there by a priestess, Theano; who, as the wife of Antenor, was of the very next rank to Priam and his house. The goddess is addressed, on the occasion of the procession of the Sixth Book, in a strain which seems to acknowledge her possession of supreme power286: the defender of cities, excellent among goddesses, she is entreated to have pity on Troy, to break the lance of Diomed, and to grant that he himself may fall.
5. Apollo would appear to be the favourite among the great deities of the country. He, like Minerva, has a temple in the citadel287. Chryses is his priest at Chryse, and there too he has a temple. He is the special protector of Cilla and of Tenedos288. With Minerva, he is indicated as the recipient of supreme honour289. The Lycian name, so prevalent in Troas, establishes a special connection with him. In the Iliad, he seems to be the ordinary and immediate Providence to the Trojan chiefs, as Minerva is to the Greek ones. At the same time, he carries no sign of exclusive nationalism; he bears no hatred to the Greeks; but, after the restitution and propitiation, he at once accepts the prayer, and stays the pestilence290.
6. Latona must have been known among the Trojans; because Homer has represented her as contending on the Trojan side in the war of the gods, and as engaged in tending the wounded Æneas within the temple of Apollo on Pergamus.
7. The same reasons apply also to Diana: and we moreover find, that she instructed the Trojan Scamandrius in the huntsman’s art291.
8. Venus is eminently Trojan. Her relation to this people is marked by her favour towards Paris: her passion for Anchises: her sending a personal ornament as a marriage gift to Andromache; her ministerial charge over the body of Hector (Il. xxiii. 184-7); her being chosen as the model to which Trojan beauties are compared, while Diana is the favourite standard for the Greek woman. It is also marked by her zealous, though feeble, partizanship in favour of Troy among the Immortals: and by the biting taunts of Pallas, of Helen, and of Diomed292.
9. Vulcan is not only known, but has a cult in Troy: for Dares is his priest, and is a person of great wealth and consideration; one of whose sons he delivers from death in battle, to comfort the old man in his decline293.
10. Mars. Of this deity it would seem, that he has been given by Homer to the Pelasgians, mainly because of his so strongly marked Thracian character, and his want of recognition among the Hellenes, who had a higher deity of war in Minerva. I have touched elsewhere upon his equivocal position as between the two parties to the war. It corresponds with that of the Thracians, who appear to form a point of intersection, so to speak, for the Hellic and Pelasgian races. Those of the plain of Adrianople are, like the Pelasgi, horse-breeders, dwelling in a fertile country: the ruder portion are among the mountains to the north and west.
11. Mercury. One sign only of the ordinary agency of this deity in Troas is exhibited; he gives abundant increase to the flocks of Phorbas294.
12. Earth (Γαῖα) would appear to have been recognised as an object of distinct worship in Troas: for when Menelaus proposes the Pact, he invites the Trojans to sacrifice a black lamb to her, and a white one to the Sun; while the Greeks will on their part offer up a lamb to Jupiter. The proposal is at once accepted; and the heralds are sent by Hector to the city for the lambs295, which seems to be conclusive as to the acknowledgment of these two deities in Troy.
13. The Sun. Besides that the passage last quoted for Earth is also conclusive for the Sun, we have another token of his relation to Troy, in the unwillingness with which he closes the day, when with his setting is to end the glory of Hector and of his country296.
We have thus gone through the list of the greater Greek deities, and have found them all acknowledged in Troas, with the following exceptions: 1. of Ceres, whom we may however suspect, from her Pelasgian character, to have been worshipped there under some name or form; 2. of Aidoneus; and 3. of Persephone. These exceptions will be further noticed.
Again, among the thirteen who have been identified as objects of Trojan worship, we find one, namely, Γαῖα, of whom we can hardly say that she was worshipped in Greece; though she was invoked, as by Agamemnon in the Nineteenth Book, and by Althea in the Ninth, to add a more solemn sanction to oaths.
14. Together with her, we may take notice of a fourteenth deity, apparently of great consideration in Troy, namely, the River Scamander. He bears a marked sign of ancient worship, in having a divine appellation, Xanthus, as well as his terrestrial one, Scamander. He had an ἀρήτηρ, by name Dolopion. To him, according to the speech of Achilles, the Trojans sacrificed live horses. He enters into the division of parties among the
281
Il. viii. 47, 8.
282
Il. iii. 298.
283
Il. iv. 48.
284
Il. xxi. 442 seqq. vii. 459. xii. 17.
285
Olympus, sect. iii. p. 197.
286
Il. vi. 298-300. 305-10.
287
Il. v. 446.
288
Il i. 37-9.
289
Il. vii. 540. xiii. 827.
290
Il. i. 457.
291
Il. v. 49.
292
Il. v. 421-5. 348-51. iii. 405-9.
293
Il. v. 9. and 20-4.
294
Il. xiv. 490.
295
Il. iii. 103. 116.
296
Il. xviii. 239.