Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/511

Rh call forth from the earth not a well but a horse. But the fact of this CHAP. antagonism with the Aryan gods of Hellas is a fact which cannot be lightly passed over. There must be a reason for it ; and we are at once justified in asking whether the strife between Poseidon and Athene may not be the strife which followed the introduction of the Dionysiak ritual into Boiotia. The name cannot with any plausibility be referred to an Aryan root. The attempts to connect it with Potamos and Posis are failures, because beyond doubt Poseidon was not, as this would show him to be, a god of fresh-water streams and rivers : nor can it with sufficient reason be connected with the root contained in such words as Potis, Potnia, Potent, and others denoting power. As then we have here a name which we cannot explain by a comparison with any Greek words, and for which we find no equiva- lent in the language or the traditions of any cognate tribes, — when the character of the person named is not self-consistent, — when the stories told of him point to disputes and struggles for the establishment of his power, and when, lastly, these traditions seem to indicate the East as the birthplace of his worship, we are at the least free to see what may be said for the notion that the god in question is not a Greek or an Aryan but a Semitic deity.

On the explanation which sees in Poseidon simply the definite Poseid6n article prefixed to the Phenician Sidon, 1 do not venture to pro- Ath^ng. nounce judgment^ But it is of more importance to note that the two chief epithets applied to him denote far more a god of the solid earth than a lord of the waters. The being who is Ennosigaios, the Earth-shaker, must clearly be worshipped in a country of earthquakes ; and he who is Gaieochos can only be the keeper or guardian of the world. But when in the eyes of the Greeks he became a sea-god, the images associated with his name received explanations in harmony with the spirit not of Semitic but of Aryan mythology. He would now become the tamer of the horse in a new sense. As the rays of the sun became the Harits and Rohits, his gleaming steeds, so the curling waves with their white crests would be the flowing-maned horses of the sea-king. Thus he ascends his chariot at Aigai, and his steeds with golden hair streaming from their shoulders speed across the waters. Round him play the monsters of the deep, and

' Mr. Brown, in his monograph on " Poseidon," explains Sidon (the fish- ing station) as the On or Aun of the ship, the Aun being the mundane egg, Oon, from which all things proceed. But the connexion of Poseidon with the horse has to be accounted for not less than his connexion with the ship. Mr. Brown's remarks on these points seem not altogether clear. If the same Phe- nician word signified both bull and shi]i, this might explain the association of the bull with Poseidon in the mind of the Greek, while it might also point to the importation of the new deity across the sea.