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Ajax, from the Eginetan Sculptures.

CHAPTER II.

THE GRECIAN HEROES.

§ 1. Mythical character of the Heroic Age. § 2. Hercules. § 3. Theseus. § 4. Minos. § 5. Voyage of the Argonauts. § 6. The Seven against Thebes and the Epigoni. § 7. The Trojan War as related in the Iliad. § 8. Later additions. § 9. Return of the Grecian heroes from Troy. § 10. Date of the fall of Troy. § 11. Whether the Heroic legends contain any historical facts. § 12. The Homeric poems present a picture of a real state of society.

§ 1. It was universally believed by the Greeks that their native land was in the earlier ages ruled by a noble race of beings, possessing a superhuman though not a divine nature, and superior to ordinary men in strength of body and greatness of soul. These are the Heroes of Grecian mythology, whose exploits and adventures form the great mine from which the Greeks derived inexhaustible materials for their poetry

"Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line,

Or the tale of Troy divine."

According to mythical chronology the Heroic age constitutes a period of about two hundred years, from the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the return of the Greeks from Troy. Since the legends of this period belong to mythology and not to history, they find their proper place in a work devoted to the former subject. But some of them are so closely interwoven with the historical traditions of Greece that it is impossible to pass them by entirely. Among the heroes three stand conspicuously forth: Hercules, the national hero of Greece; Theseus, the hero of Attica; and Minos, king of Crete, the principal founder of Grecian law and civilization.

§ 2. Of all the Heroic families none was more celebrated than that of Danaus, king of Argos. In the fifth generation we find it personified in Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius, whom Jove wooed in a shower of gold, and became by her the father of Perseus, the celebrated conqueror of Medusa. Perseus was the ancestor of Hercules, being the great-grandfather both of Alcmena and of her husband Amphitryon. According to the wellknown legend, Jove, enamoured of Alcmena, assumed the form of Amphitryon in his absence, and became by her the father of Hercules. To the son thus begotten Jove had destined the sovereignty of Argos; but the jealous anger of Hera (Juno) raised up against him an opponent and a master in the person of Eurystheus, another descendant of Perseus, at whose bidding the greatest of all heroes was to achieve those wonderful labours which filled the whole world with his fame. In these are realized, on a magnificent scale, the two great objects of ancient heroism -the destruction of physical and moral evil, and the acquisition of wealth and power. Such, for instance, are the labours, in which he destroys the terrible Nemean lion and Lernean hydra, carries off the girdle of Ares from Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, and seizes the golden apples of the Hesperides, guarded by a hundred-headed dragon. At the same time, however, we perceive, as is the case with all the Grecian heroes, that the extraordinary endowments of Hercules did not preserve him from human weakness and error, and the consequent expiation which they demanded. After slaying in his ungovernable rage his friend and companion Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, he is seized with sickness, becomes the slave of the Lydian queen Omphalé, devotes himself to effeminate occupations, and sinks into luxury and wantonness. At a subsequent period another crime produces his death. The rape of Iolé, the daughter of the same Eurytus whose son he had slain, incites his wife Deianira to send him the fatal shirt, poisoned with the blood of the centaur Nessus. Unable to endure the torments it occasions, he repairs

to Mount Eta, which becomes the scene of his apotheosis. As he lies on the funeral pile there erected for him by Hyllus, his eldest son by Deianira, a cloud descends and bears him off amidst thunder and lightning to Olympus, where he is received among the immortal gods, and, being reconciled to Hera, receives in marriage her daughter Hebé, the goddess of youth.

§ 3. Theseus was the son of Egeus, king of Athens, and of Æthra, daughter of Pittheus, king of Trozen. On his return to Athens Ægeus left Ethra behind him at Trozen, enjoining her not to send their son to Athens till he was strong enough to lift from beneath a stone of prodigious weight his father's sword and sandals, which would serve as tokens of recognition. Theseus, when grown to manhood, accomplished the appointed feat with ease, and took the road to Athens over the isthmus of Corinth, a journey beset with many dangers from robbers who barbarously mutilated or killed the unhappy wayfarers who fell into their hands. But Theseus overcame them all, and arrived in safety at Athens, where he was recognised by Ægeus, and declared his successor. Among his many memorable achievements the most famous was his deliverance of Athens from the frightful tribute imposed upon it by Minos for the murder of his son. This consisted of seven youths and seven maidens, whom the Athenians were compelled to send every nine years to Crete, there to be devoured by the Minotaur, a monster with a human body and a bull's head, which Minos kept concealed in an inextricable labyrinth. The third ship was already on the point of sailing with its cargo of innocent victims, when Theseus offered to go with them, hoping to put an end for ever to the horrible tribute. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, became enamoured of the hero, and having supplied him with a clue to trace the windings of the labyrinth, Theseus succeeded in killing the monster, and in tracking his way out of the mazy lair. As he returned towards Athens, the pilot forgot to hoist the white sail, agreed on as the signal of success, in place of the black sail usually carried by the vessel which bore that melancholy tribute, whereupon Ægeus, thinking that his son had perished, threw himself into the sea which afterwards bore his name.

Theseus, having now ascended the throne, proceeded to lay the foundations of the future greatness of Athens. He united into one political body the twelve independent states into which Cecrops had divided Attica, and made Athens the capital of the new kingdom. In order to accommodate the increased population of the city, he covered with buildings the ground lying to the south of the Cecropian citadel; and in commemoration of the union, he instituted the festivals of the Panathenæa and

Synoikia in honour of Athena (Minerva), the patron goddess of the city. He then divided the citizens into three classes, namely, Eupatrida, or nobles, Geomori, or husbandmen, and Demiurgi, or artisans. He is further said to have established a constitutional government, retaining in his own hands only certain definite powers and privileges, so that he was regarded in a later age as the founder of civil equality at Athens. He also extended the Attic territory to the confines of Peloponnesus, and established the games in honour of Poseidon (Neptune), which were celebrated on the isthmus. He subsequently engaged in a variety of adventures in conjunction with Hercules and Pirithous, king of the Lapitha. But on his return to Athens after these exploits, the Athenians refused to obey him any longer, whereupon he retired to the island of Scyros, and was there murdered through the treachery of king Lycomedes.

§ 4. Minos, king of Crete, whose story is connected with that of Theseus, appears, like him, the representative of an historical and civil state of life. Minos is said to have received the laws of Crete immediately from Jove; and traditions uniformly represent him as king of the sea. Possessing a numerous fleet, he reduced the surrounding islands, especially the Cyclades, under his dominion, and cleared the sea of pirates. A later legend recognizes two heroes of the name of Minos; one, the son of Jove and Europa, who after his death became a judge in the lower world, and the other his grandson, who held the dominion of the sea.

§ 5. If, turning from the exploits of individual heroes, we examine the enterprises undertaken by a collective body of chiefs, we shall again find three expeditions more celebrated than the rest. These are the Voyage of the Argonauts, the War of the Seven against Thebes, and the Siege of Troy.

In the Voyage of the Argonauts the Æolids play the principal part. Pelias, a descendant of Eolus, had deprived his halfbrother Æson of his dominion over the kingdom of Iolcus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of Æson, had grown up to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded back his throne. Æson consented only on condition that Jason should first fetch the golden fleece from Æa,* a region in the farthest east, ruled by Eetes, offspring of the Sun-god. Here it was preserved in the grove of Ares (Mars), suspended upon a tree, and under the guardianship of a sleepless dragon.

The Argo, a ship built for the expedition, gave its name to the adventurers, who, under the conduct of Jason, embarked in the harbour of Iolcus, for the purpose of bringing back the fleece. They consisted of the most renowned heroes of the time. Her* Identified by the Greeks of a later age with Colchis.

cules and Theseus are mentioned among them, as well as the principal leaders in the Trojan war. Jason, however, is the central figure and the real hero of the enterprise. When he and his companions arrived, after many adventures, at Ea, king Eetes promised to deliver to him the golden fleece, provided he yoked two fire-breathing oxen with brazen feet, ploughed with them a piece of land, sowed in the furrows thus made the remainder of the teeth of the dragon slain by Cadmus, and vanquished the armed men that would start from the seed. Here, also, as in the legend of Theseus, love played a prominent part. Medea, the daughter of Eetes, who was skilled in magic and supernatural arts, furnished Jason with the means of accomplishing the labours imposed upon him; and as her father still delayed to surrender the fleece, she cast the dragon asleep during the night, seized the fleece, and set sail in the Argo with her beloved Jason and his companions. Eetes pursued them; but after many long and strange wanderings, they at length reached Iolcus in safety.

§ 6. In the Heroic age Thebes was already one of the principal cities of Greece. Towards the close of this period it became the scene of the last struggles of a fated race, whose legendary history is so full of human crime, of the obscure warnings of the gods, and of the inevitable march of fate, as to render it one of the favourite subjects of the tragic poets of Athens.

Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle to beget no children, or he would be murdered by his son. He neglected the prediction, but to obviate its effects caused his son Edipus by Jocasta to be exposed to death. The infant, however, was saved and carried to Corinth, where king Polybus reared him as his own. Grown up to manhood, and stung by the reproaches which he heard cast upon his birth, Edipus consulted the Delphic oracle respecting his parentage, and was warned by it not to return to his native land, as he was there destined to slay his father and commit incest with his mother. Edipus, believing Polybus to be his real father, now avoided Corinth and took the road to Thebes, but by so doing incurred the very fate which he sought to avoid. Meeting Laïus in a narrow road he slew him in a quarrel, and then proceeding to Thebes obtained the hand of his mother, queen Jocasta, promised as a reward to the man who should solve a riddle propounded by the sphinx, a monster which had long infested the land, but which was driven to slay itself by the solution of its enigma. Two sons and two daughters were the fruit of the incestuous marriage. These horrors drew down a pestilence on the land, and in order to avert it, an oracle commanded the banishment of the murderer of Laïus. The inquiries instituted to discover the guilty man revealed the fatal truth.