Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/431

 ELIMINATION OF MYTHICAL NARRATIVE. 399 of prophesying.! The intimation of such an opinion by Herodo- tus, himself a thoroughly pious man, marks the sensibly diminish- ed omnipresence of the gods, and the increasing tendency to look for the explanation of phenomena among more visible and deter- minate agencies. We may make a similar remark on the dictum of the historian respecting the narrow defile of Tempe, forming the embouchure of the Peneus and the efflux of all the waters from the Thessa- lian basin. The Thessalians alleged that this whole basin of Thessaly had once been a lake, but that Poseidon had split the chain of mountains and opened the efflux ; 2 upon which primi- 1 Homer, Iliad, i. 72-87 ; xv. 412. Odyss. xv. 245-252 ; iv. 233. Some times the gods inspired prophecy for the special occasion, without confer ring upon the party the permanent gift and status of a prophet (compare Odyss. i. 202 ; xvii. 383). Solon, Fragm. xi. 48-53, Schneidewin : "AA/lov [tdvTiv E&qKev uva ^/cuepyof ' "Eyvw 6' uvSpl KOKbv rifh.o$e.v Ipxofievo Herodotus himself reproduces the old belief in the special gift of prophetic power by Zeus and Apollo, in the story of Euenius of Apollonia (ix. 94). See the fine ode of Pindar, describing the birth and inspiration of Jamus, eponymous father of the great prophetic family in Elis called the Jamids (Herodot. ix. 33), Pindar, Olymp. vi. 40-75. About Teiresias, Sophoc. (Ed. Tyr. 283-410. Neither Nestor nor Odysseus possesses the gift of prophecy. 2 More than one tale is found elsewhere, similar to this, about the defile of Tempe : " A tradition exists that this part of the country was once a lake, and that Solomon commanded two deeves, or genii, named Ard and Beel, to turn off the water into the Caspian, which they effected by cutting a passage through the mountains ; and a city, erected in the newly-formed plain, was named after them Ard-u-beel." (Sketches on the Shores of the Caspian, by W. R. Holmes. ) Also about the plain of Santa Fe di Bogota, in South America, that it was once under water, until Bochica cleft the mountains and opened a channel of egress (Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleras, p. 87-88); and about the plateau of Kashmir (Humboldt, Asie Centrale, vol. i. p 102), drained in a like miraculous manner by the saint Kasyapa. The manner] in which conjectures, derived from local configuration or peculiarities, are often made to assume the form of traditions, is well remarked by the same illustrious* traveller : " Ce qui se presente comme une tradition, n'est souvent que ie reflet de 1'impression que laisse 1'aspect des lieux. Des banes de coquilles a demi-fossiles, repandues dans les isthmes ou sut des plateaux, font naitre