Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/512

480 BOOK II. Poseidon and the Telchines.

the sea in her gladness makes a path for her lorA^ In the myth which traces the name of the [^gean] Aigaian sea to the goat,'* which is said to have sprung from its surface, we have a story which might have made Poseidon the goatherd, whose goats leap from rock to rock as the waves toss to and fro in the sea. But it failed to take root, probably because such names as Aigialos, the shore where the sea breaks, retained their meaning too clearly. There was nothing to prevent the other association, and thus the story was that Poseidon bestowed on man the horse, and by teaching them how to tame and use it fostered the art of war and the love of strife. Thus the verdict of the gods in his contest with Athene receives its full justification. His defeat is followed by a plague of waters which burst over the land when he is worsted by Athene, or by the dr}'ing up of the rivers when Here refuses to let him be king in Argos. In Corinth there is a compromise. Helios remains master of the Akropolis which greets him on his rising, while Poseidon is lord of the Isthmus.^ In Delos and at Delphi he failed to carry his point, and he was content to give up his rights over the former in exchange for a temple on the island of Kalaureia, and over the latter for a sanctuary on the cape of Tainaron, while at Naxos he was defeated by the kindred god Dionysos.

It is plain that we have here a struggle between the Arj'an gods of the land and a stranger who seeks to thrust himself in among them. The Aryan deities are those who possess the wide heaven ; and firom these Poseidon in the Iliad is carefully distinguished. His children, the gigantic Aloadai, fail in their attempts to storm the abodes of the ethereal gods.

Of the process which assigned to him a definite place in the later theogonies it is scarcely necessar}' to speak. Like Zeus, Poseidon had been Kronides, and when this name had been made to yield a mythical personality, he became also a son of Kronos, and was swallowed by him, like the other children of Rhea. A truer feeling is seen in the myth which makes the Telchines, the mystic dancers of the sky, guardians of his infancy.* Like Zeus, again, he must fight against the Titans, and when after their defeat the triple division is made between the Kronid brothers, Poseidon must be made to own allegiance to Zeus, — an admission which is followed by no great harmony. He can retort the angrj- words of Zeus, and he plots with Here and Athene to bind him.

' //. xiii. 23-30. ' rh fiiv Atyaiov irt^ayos ol yutroirb t5}s TTfpl Kdvas alyhs (■nwvvnov yiyovivai. tpaaiv, ol i( a-nh rrjs Kopvarlai rf/S Alyairis ouofiaCo/xei'fj.s- S'ch. Apollon. i. II. 65.— Preller, Gr. Myth. . 445. ^ The earlier identity of Poseidon with Zeus is attested by the name Zeno- poseidon. Preller, Gr. Mvth. i. 452. « Diod. V. 55.