Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/441

 EPHORUS, TMEOPOMPUS, XENOPHON, ETC. 409 To touch a little upon the later historians by whom these mythes were handled, we find that Anaximenes of Lampsacus composed a consecutive history of events, beginning from the Theogony down to the battle of Mantineia. 1 But Ephorus pro- fessed to omit all the mythical narratives which are referred to times anterior to the return of the Herakleids, (such restriction would of course have banished the siege of Troy,) and even re- proved those who introduced mythes into historical writing; adding, that everywhere truth was the object to be aimed at. 2 Yet in practice he seems often to have departed from his own rule. 3 Theopompus, on the other hand, openly proclaimed that or a part, of the possible actions ascribed to them I profess myself unable to determine But even assuming both the persons and their exploits to be fictions, these very fictions will have been conceived and put together in con- formity to the general social phenomena among which the describer and his bearers lived and will thus serve as illustrations of the manners then preva- lent. In fact, the real value of the Preface of Thucydides, upon which Pro- fessor Korttlni bestows such just praise, consists, not in the particular facts which he brings out by altering the legends, but in the rational general views which he sets forth respecting early Grecian society, and respecting the steps as well as the causes whereby it attained its actual position as he saw it. Professor Kortiim also affirms that the mythes contain " real matter of fact along with mere conceptions :" which affirmation is the same as that of the Quarterly Reviewer, when he says that the mythopceic faculty is not creative. Taking the mythes in the mass, I doubt not that this is true, nor have I anywhere denied it. Taking them one by one, I neither affirm nor deny it. My position is, that, whether there be matter of fact or not, we have no test whereby it can be singled out, identified, and severed from the accom- panying fiction. And it lies upon those, who proclaim the practicability of such severance, to exhibit some means of verification better than any which has been yet pointed out. If Thucydides has failed in doing this, it is cer- tain that none of the many authors who have made the same attempt after him have been more successful. It cannot surely be denied that the mythopceic faculty is creative, when wo have before us so many divine legends, not merely in Greece, but in other countries also. To suppose that these religious legends are mere exaggera- tions, etc. of some basis of actual fact that the gods of polytheism were merely divinized men, with qualities distorted or feigned would be to em- brace m substance the theory of Euemerus. 1 Dioddr. xv. 89. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great 8 Diodor. iv. 1. Strabo, ix. p. 422, emrifirjaa^ role tyihonvdovGiv h> TTJ 1% ' Ephorus recounted the principal adventures of Herakles (Fragm. 8, 9. TOL, 1 18