Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/485

 SUBSEQUENT AGE OF INTERPRETATION. 453 The habit of distinguishing the interpreted from the literal mythe has passed from the literary men of antiquity to those of the modern world, who have for the most part construed the divine mythes as allegorized philosophy, and the heroic mythea as exaggerated, adorned, and over-colored history. The early ages of Greece have thus been peopled with quasi-historical per- sons and quasi-historical events, all extracted from the mythes after making certain allowances for poetical ornament But we must not treat this extracted product as if it were the original substance ; we cannot properly understand it except by viewing it in connection with the literal mythes out of which it was ob- tained, in their primitive age and appropriate medium, before the superior minds had yet outgrown the common faith in an all- personified Nature, and learned to restrict the divine free-agency by the supposition of invariable physical laws. It is in this point of view that the mythes are important for any one who would correctly appreciate the general tone of Grecian thought and feeling ; for they were the universal mental stock of the Hellenic world common to men and women, rich and poor, instructed and ignorant ; they were in every one's memory and in every one's mouth, 1 while science and history were confined to corn- to wear, that they become unfit even to amuse the fancy or to serve any purpose whatever. "It -were absurd to quote the fable of the Iliad or the Odyssey, the legend of Hercules, Theseus, and (Edipus, as authorities in matters of fact relating to the history of mankind ; but they may, with great justice, be cited to ascertain what were the conceptions and sentiments of the age in which they were composed, or to characterize the genius of that people with whose imaginations they were blended, and by whom they were fondly rehearsed and admired. In this manner, fiction may be admitted to vouch for tin "enius of nations, while history has nothing to offer worthy of credit" = To the same purpose, M. Paulin Paris (in his Lettre a M. H. de Mon- merqne', prefixed to the Koman de Berte aux Grans Pi&, Paris, 1836), re- specting the"romansof the Middle Ages: P<mr bien connattre ITiis- toire du moyen age, non pas celle des faits, mais celle des mceurs qui rendent les faits vraisemblables, il faut 1'avoir ftudie'e dans les rpmans, et voil pourquoi 1'Histoire de France n'est pas encore faite." (p. xxi.) 1 A curious evidence of the undiminishcd popularity of the Grecian mythi to the exclusion even of recent history, is preserved by Vopiscus at the be- ginning of his Life of Aurclian. The prefect of the city of Rome, Junius Tiberianus, toik Vopiscus mto