Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/93

 ZEUS Abl) HIS ATTRIBUTES. 61 Here the general types of Hermes and Apollo, coupled with the present fact that no thief ever approached the rich an d seem- ingly accessible treasures of Delphi, engender a string of exposi- tory incidents cast into a quasi-historical form and detailing how it happened that Hermes had bound himself by especial convention to respect the Delphian temple. The types of Apollo seem to tave been different in different times and parts of Greece : in some places he was worshipped as Apollo Nomios, 1 or the patron of pasture and cattle ; and this attribute, which elsewhere passed over to his son Aristaeus, is by our hymnographer voluntarily surrendered to Hermes, combined with the golden rod of fruit- fulness. On the other hand, the lyre did not originally belong to the Far-striking King, nor is he at all an inventor : the hymn explains both its first invention and how it came into his posses- sion. And the value of the incidents is thus partly expository, partly illustrative, as expanding in detail the general preconceived character of the Kyllenian god. To Zeus more amours are ascribed than to any of the other gods, probably because the Grecian kings and chieftains were especially anxious to trace their lineage to the highest and most glorious of all, each of these amours having its representative progeny on earth. 2 Such subjects were among the most promis- ing and agreeable for the interest of mythical narrative, and Zeus as a lover thus became the father of a great many legend?, branching out into innumerable interferences, for which his sons, all of them distinguished individuals, and many of them perse- cuted by Here, furnished the occasion. But besides this, the commanding functions of the supreme god, judicial and admin- istrative, extending both over gods and men, was a potent stimu- lus to the mythopoeic activity. Zeus has to watch over his own dignity, the first of all considerations with a god : moreover as Horkios, Xenios, Ktesios, Meilichios, (a small proportion of his thousand surnames,) he guaranteed oaths and punished perjurers, he enforced the observance of hospitality, he guarded the family hoard and the crop realized for the year, and he granted expia 1 Kallimach. Hymn. Apoll. 47 8 Kallimach. Hymn. Jov. 79. ' (! Atof paaiZT/ef, etc.