Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/379

 FORM OF 1'EKSONAL NARRATIVE IN THE MYTHES. 347 L reeks with their conception of the physical phenomena oefore them, not simply in the way of poetical ornament, but as a genu- ine portion of their every -day belief. It was in this early state of the Grecian mind, stimulating so forcibly the imagination and the feelings, and acting through them upon the belief, that the great body of the mythes grew up and obtained circulation. They were, from first to last, personal narratives and adventures ; and the persons who predominated as subjects of them were the gods, the heroes, the nymphs, etc., whose names were known and reverenced, and in whom every one felt interested. To every god and every hero it was consis- tent with Grecian ideas to ascribe great diversity of human mo- tive and attribute : each indeed has his own peculiar type of character, more or less strictly defined ; but in all there was a wide foundation for animated narrative and for romantic incident. The gods and heroes of the land and the tribe belonged, in the conception of a Greek, alike to the present and to the past : he worshipped in their groves and at their festivals ; he invoked their protection, and believed in their superintending guardianship, even in his own day : but their more special, intimate, and sym- pathizing agency was cast back into the unrecorded past. 1 To 1 Hesiod, Catalog. Fragm. 76. p. 48, ed. Duntzer : Swat yap Tore daZref eaav t;vvoi re &OUKC t, ' Atfavarotf re deolai Kara^v^TOif r' uv&puKOtf. Both the Thcogonia and the Works and Days bear testimony to die same general feeling. Even the heroes of Homer suppose a preceding age, the inmates of which were in nearer contact with the gods than they themselves (Odyss. viii. 223; Iliad, v. 304 ; xii. 382). Compare Catullus, Carm. 64; Epithalam. Peleos et Thetidos, v. 382-408. Menander the Rhetor (following generally the steps of Dionys. Hal. Art Rhetor, cap. 1-8) suggests to his fellow-citizens at Alexandria Troas, proper and complimentary forms to invite a great man to visit their festival of the Sminthia : uairep yap ' AffoA/lwva iroMunif Mt'^ero TJ Tro/lif rotf 'S.fiiv&iot.^ T/VIKO t!-7}v '-Stove irpoaviJ e-jridrj/ielv TO If a v$ p u iro tf, OVTU not as. T] 7r6/Uf vvv irpoaSexsrai (rept 'EirideiKTiK. s. iv. c. 14. ap.Walz. Coll. Rhetor, t. ix. p. 304). Menander seems to have been a native of Aler- andria Troas, though Suidas calls him a Laodicean (see Walz. Prsef. ad t ix. p. xv.-xx. ; and Trept ^iiivdiaKuv, sect. iv. c. 17). The festival of the Sminthia lasted down to his time, embracing the whole duration of paganism from Homer downwards.