Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/44

16 mode of disposing of the dead. In Homer, dead bodies are burnt (though burial is also mentioned), the "Mycenaean" custom apparently was to bury them.

The theology of Homer also seems to represent a period of transition. The Pelasgoi were probably monotheists. Their one god was Zeus. The Cretans from very early times claimed to show the place of his birth, and even of his tomb. In the ancient oracle of Dodona it is Zeus alone who speaks and not his prophetes Apollo. For the Hellenes as we know them not only had Olympus become peopled with other gods and goddesses, of whom Zeus was the father and chief, but their numbers had been increased by the addition of deities representing celestial bodies, and good or bad qualities—the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Rivers, Youth, Love, Death, Wisdom, Folly, Justice, and the Avengers of Sin. Moreover, the ranks of the immortals were continually being swelled by the addition of deified men or Heroes, whose services to their fellow-men earned this reward, and were commemorated by a special kind of worship in some Heroon in nearly every part of Greece.

In Homer this deification of men is rare, perhaps the only instance is Heracles. But his gods are brought nearer to men. Though they possess immortality and superhuman powers, they are subject to human frailties, to passion, appetite, pain, and pleasure, and like men are subordinated to overruling fate. They are eager partisans in human contests; they are influenced by jealousy,