Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/479

 MYTHICAL GENEALOGIES. 447 Thucydides from jEakus, of Socrates from Dsedalus, of the Spartan heraldic family from Talthybius, of the prophetic lamid family in Elis from lamus, of the root-gatherers in Pelion from Cheiron, and of Hekataeus and his gens from some god in the sixteenth ascending line of the series. There is little exaggeration in saying, indeed, that no permanent com- bination of men in Greece, religious, social, or professional, was without a similar pedigree ; all arising out of the same exigences of the feelings and imagination, to personify as well as to sanctify the bond of union among the members. Every one of these gentes began with a religious and ended with an historical person. At some point or other in the upward series, entities of history were exchanged for entities of religion ; but where that point is to be found Ave are unable to say, nor had the wisest of the an- cient Greeks any means of determining. Thus much, however, we know, that the series taken as a whole, though dear and pre- cious to the believing Greek, possesses no value as chronological evidence to the historian. When Hekatoeus visited Thebes in Egypt, he mentioned to the Egyptian priests, doubtless with a feeling of satisfaction and pride, the imposing pedigree of the gens to which he belonged, with fifteen ancestors in ascending line, and a god as the initial progenitor. But he found himself immeasurably overdone by the priests " who genealogized against him." 1 They showed to him three hundred and forty-one wooden colossal statues, representing the succession of chief priests in the temple in uninterrupted series from father to son, through a space of 11,300 years. Prior to the commencement of this long period (they said), the gods dwelling along with men, had exercised sway in Egypt ; but they from Asklepius (Vita Hippocr. by Soranus, ap. "Westermann, Scriptor. Biographic, viii. 1) ; about Aristotle, see Diogen. LaCrt. v. 1. Xenophon, the physician of the emperor Claudius, was also an Asklepiad ("Tacit. Ann. xii. 61). In Ehodes, the neighboring island to Kos, was the gens 'A^iudai, or sons of Helios, specially distinguished from the 'A.Maaral of mere associated worshippers of Helios, rb notvdv ruv 'A/Ua<5uv nai riJv 'A.taoTuv ("see the Inscription in Boeckh's Collection, No. 2525, with Boeckh's comment). 1 Herodot. ii. 144. 'E/cara^j <5e yeverjlMyriaavTi. kuvrbv, Kal avadfjaavrt if iitKaiSEKaTuv i?edv, uvTeyeveri^oyriaav km Ty uptdfiqoet, ov denofievoi Trap' C, airb &eov yeven&ai av&puirov uvrsysverj^oy^ffav 6e ude, etc