Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 8, 1897.djvu/285

 Reviews. 261

have added to the value of the work if this had been done, and the other not left undone Here the author suffers a little from an insufficient use of the works of Mannhardt, Frazer, Lang, and others who are well known to members of this Society ; and one or two instances will be pointed out below where explanations might have been given which are from this cause omitted. The illustrations are good and carefully chosen, some being published for the first time. The identification of a head in the Athenian Museum (Plate XXV.) as a copy of the gold-ivory statue of Pheidias is especially interesting.

The sections included in the two volumes now under notice are the Aniconic Age, the Iconic Age, Cronos, Zeus, Hera, Athena, Artemis (with Upis, Nemesis, and Adrasteia), Hekate, Eileithyia, and Aphrodite. Each section contains a history of the worship of the deity, the cult, and the art monuments and ideal types ; and in an appendix are given the authorities dealing with the subject, with (in most cases) a geographical index. It may be well to examine one of those sections in detail, and then to offer a few remarks on the rest. For this purpose I choose Athena.

The author begins with a discussion of the name, and then passes on to show that i\thena was one of the primitive " Achaean " divinities. Notwithstanding, few traces are left of what we call primitive ideas in her cult and history ; among these are the legend of her birth from the head of Zeus, suggestions of human sacrifice, and the bathing of the idol (261). In Athena, too, there is little or no physical symbolism. In interpreting the myths from this point of view the author shows true common sense. The cult-titles of the goddess are discussed one by one, and the truth (too often forgotten) is illustrated, that " a local cult could give as well as owe a name to surrounding objects of nature" (265). The conflict of Athena and Poseidon is discussed (270) and explained, with other such, as the record of a conflict of worships. Certain titles of Athena are discussed which have been supposed to have a physical sense. One of them is identi- fied as a Phoenician word ('EWwr/s = Phoen. EUoti, Syro-Arabic Aflat) ; another, 'AXea, as meaning "of health." We may suggest that, though this is quite possible, Athena Alea may be the same as Polias, the goddess of the community ; for aXea is perhaps akin to a root meaning to assemble (Hes. tTraXea \k.ax^]v, " the