Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/426

 394 HISTORY OF GREECE. Herodotus had been profoundly impressed with what he saw and heard in Egypt. The wonderful monuments, the eviden antiquity, and the peculiar civilization of that country, acquired such preponderance in his mind over his own native legends, that he is disposed to trace even the oldest religious names or institu- tions of Greece to Egyptian or Phoenician original, setting aside in favor of this hypothesis the Grecian legends of Dionysus and Pan. 1 The oldest Grecian mythical genealogies are thus made ultimately to lose themselves in Egyptian or Phoenician antiquity, and in the full extent of these genealogies Herodotus firmly be- lieves. It does not seem that any doubt had ever crossed his mind as to the real personality of those who were named or de- scribed in the popular mythes : all of them have once had reality, either as men, as heroes, or as gods. The eponyms of cities, demes and tribes, are all comprehended in this affirmative cate- gory ; the supposition of fictitious personages being apparently never entertained. Deukalion, Hellen, Dorus, 2 Ion, with his four sons, the eponyms of the old Athenian tribes, 3 the au- tochthonous Titakus and Dekelus, 4 Danaus, Lynkeus, Perseus, Amphitryon, Alkmena, and Herakles, 5 Talthybius, the heroic progenitor of the privileged heraldic gens at Sparta, the Tyn- darids and Helena, 6 Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Orestes, 7 > Nestor and his son Peisistratus, Asopus, Thebe, and ^Egina, Inachus and 16, JEetes and Medea, 8 Mebnippus, Adrastus, and Amphiaraus, as well as Jason and the Argo, 9 all these are occupants of the real past time, and predecessors of himself and his contemporaries. In the veins of the Lacedaemonian kings flowed the blood both of Kadmus and of Danaus, their splendid pedigree being traceable to both of these great mythical names : Herodotus carries the lineage up through Herakles first to Per- seus and Danae, then through Danae to Akrisius and the Egyp- tian Danaus ; but he drops the paternal lineage when he comes 1 Herodot. ii. 146. * Herod, i. 56. 3 Herod, v. 66. 4 Herod, ix. 73. 8 Herod, ii, 43-44, 91-98, 171-182 (the Egyptians admitted the truth of the Greek legend, that Perseus had come to Libya to fetch the Gorgon's bead). Hcrod.ii. 113-120 ; iv. 145 ; vii. 134. 7 Herod, i. 67-68 ; ii. 113. vii. 159 Herod L 1, 2, 4 ; v 81. 65. Herod, i. 52 ; ir. 145 ; v. 67 ; vii. 19.1