the Sibylline books; and, from the year B.C. 208, were regularly celebrated every year, on the 5th of July.2 1. (Templa.) The celebrated temple of Apollo upon the Palatine hill, dedicated to Augustus, to which a magnificent library was attached and placed under the care of Caius Julius Hyginus the grammarian, freedman of the emperor. Propertius has a short poem describing the splendour of the edifice, written upon the day when it was first thrown open to the public. 3 4. Nothing can be more awkward than the meaning afforded by the words as they stand in the text," I implore thee, O Apollo, to bend (i. e. incline, accommodate) thy accents to the praises I am about to sing," a most clumsy prayer for inspiration. Of the numerous correc tions proposed, the most simple, and, therefore, the best, is that of Lachmann, who would substitute mea for meas,-"bend (i. e. guide) my accents to a song of praise." 5. The epithet triumphali is probably introduced here, to bring back, by association, the recollection of the triumphs of Messala the father. 6. (Cumulant.) Compare Virg. Æ. XI. 49, Et nunc ille quidem, spe multum captus inani 8. (Sepositam,) i. e. set apart for high festivals. However we may attempt to veil the spirit of this passage, by referring to the gorgeous palla worn by minstrels upon solemn occasions, to which we shall find an allusion below in the story of Arion, (Extracts from Ovid, p. 109), this couplet is neither more nor less than an injunction to the god to appear with well combed locks and in holiday attire, and forcibly points out the degrading ideas of divinity which are insensibly engendered by image worship. 9. Saturno rege fugato. The allusions in the Greek and Roman poets to the origin of the Olympian gods, and to their wars with the Titans, the Giants, and various monstrous enemies, are so numerous, and withal, in many cases, appear so confused and contradictory, that it will be serviceable to the student to present him with the whole of these fables in a connected form, as they are given by Apollodorus, and to subjoin some remarks which may serve to elucidate the narrative. In the beginning, Uranus (Coelus) ruled the universe, and having wedded Gaia (Terra), he first begat the children named The Hundred handed, Briareus, Gyes (or Gyges), and Cottus, exceeding great and 1 Macrob. S. I. 17. 2 Liv. XXVII, 23. Cassius XLIX. 15.; LIII. 1. Velleius II. 81, K 3 Prop. II. xxxi. See also Dion Suet. Octav. XXIX. strong, of whom each had fifty heads and an hundred hands. After these Gaia bore him the Cyclopes, Arges, Steropes, Brontes, of whom each had one eye upon the forehead; but Uranus bound these, his sons, and cast them into Tartarus, which is a dark abyss in the realms of Hades, as far removed from earth as earth from heaven. Again, he begat sons on Gaia, those named the Titans, Oceanus, Koius, Hyperion, Krius, Iapetus, and, youngest of all, Kronus (Saturnus;) and daughters, those named the Titanides, Tethys, Rhea, Themis, Mnemosyne, Phoebe, Dione, Theia. But Gaia, grieved for the loss of her sons who had been cast into Tartarus, persuaded the Titans to attack Uranus, and gave to Kronus a crooked sword of adamant. Then all, save Oceanus, assailed their sire, and by Kronus he was mutilated. From the blood drops sprung the Erinyes (Furia), Alecto, Tisiphone, Megara. The Titans then gave the supreme dominion to Kronus, and released their brethren from Tartarus. But Kronus bound them again, and again imprisoned them in Tartarus, and having wedded his sister Rhea, forasmuch as Gaia and Uranus had prophesied to him, saying, that he would be bereft of power by his own child, he swallowed all who were produced, Hestia (Vesta,) the first-born, then Demeter (Ceres), then Hera (Juno), and after these Pluto and Poseidon (Neptune.) But Rhea, filled with wrath at these things, passed over to Crete at the time when she chanced to be pregnant with Zeus (Jupiter), and having brought him forth in a cave of Dicte, gave him to the Curetes, and the nymphs, Adrasteia and Ide, daughters of Melisseus, to be reared. These last nurtured the boy with the milk of Amalthea, and the Curetes, clad in armour, watched the babe in the grot, smiting their shields with their spears that Kronus might not hear its cries. But Rhea rolled a stone in swaddling clothes and gave it to Kronus to swallow, as if it had been the new born infant. Now, when Zeus had attained to full vigour, he took Metis, (i. e. counsel, prudence) as his assistant, who administered a drug to Kronus, by which compelled he vomited up first the stone and then the children he had swallowed, along with whom Zeus waged war upon the Titans. After they had fought for ten years, Gaia pronounced that the victory would be to Zeus if he could obtain the prisoners in Tartarus for allies, upon which he slew Kampe, who kept watch over their bonds, and set them free. Then the Cyclopes gave to Zeus thunder and lightning and levin-bolts, to Pluto a helmet, to Poseidon a trident. Thus armed, they got the mastery over the Titans, and having shut them up in Tartarus, set over them The Hundred-handed as guards, and themselves cast lots for dominion; to Zeus fell the empire of heaven; to Poseidon, of the sea; to Pluto, of the realms below. But Gaia, being grieved for the Titans, bore to Uranus the Giants, in vastness of body surpassing all, in might unconquerable; terrible they were to look upon; long thick hair flowed down from chin and head, and their feet were covered with serpent scales. They were born, as some say, in Phlegræ; as others, in Pallene; and they darted blazing oaks and rocks against heaven. Porphyrion and Alcyoneus stood forth superior to the rest, of whom the latter was immortal in the land where he was born-he it was that drove the cows of Helios (Sol) from Erythea. Now, it became known to the gods, from an oracle, that unless they were aided by a mortal, it was impossible for them to destroy the Giants, and thus they invited Hercules to be their ally. Alcyoneus first fell pierced by his shafts, but received new vigour when he touched the earth, till the hero, counselled by Athene (Minerva), dragged him forth from his native soil, and then he perished. Porphyrion fell, smitten by the bolts of Zeus and the arrows of Hercules. Apollo shot out the left eye of Ephialtes, Hercules the right, Eurytus was slain by the thyrsus of Dionysus (Bacchus); Clytion, by red-hot lumps of iron hurled by Hephaestus (Vulcanus); or, as some say, by Hecate. Athene cast the island of Sicily upon Enceladus as he fled, and stripping off the skin of Pallas, used it as a shield for her own body in the fight. Polybotes was chased over the sea by Poseidon, who, tearing off a portion of Cos (the fragment became the isle of Nisyros), overwhelmed the fugitive. Hermes (Mercurius), wearing the helmet of Hades (Pluto), slew Hippolytus; Artemis (Diana), slew Gration; the Moræ (Fata,) slew Agrius and Thoon, who fought with brazen clubs. The rest Zeus smote down with his bolts, and Hercules transfixed all as they fell with his arrows. After the gods had vanquished the Giants, Gaia, being the more enraged, mingled with Tartarus, and brought forth Typhon in Cilicia, in form half man half brute. In size and might he surpassed all the progeny of Gaia. Down to the thighs he bore the shape of man, in vastness immeasurable, so that he overtopped all mountains, and full oft his head grazed the stars: hands too he had, the one reaching to the east, the other to the west, and from these issued a hundred serpent heads. Down from the thighs rolled huge viper coils, whose wreaths being extended to the head itself, gave forth loud hisses. His whole body was covered with wings, grisly hair streamed from head and chin, and fire flashed from his eyes. Such was Typhon, and such he sped on with howls and hisses, hurling blazing rocks against heaven, while stormy billows of flame boiled forth from his mouth. The gods, when they saw him rushing to the assault, fled to Egypt, and being pursued, assumed the form of beasts. But Zeus, having struck him with his bolts from afar, advancing nearer, scared him with his adamantine sabre, and followed him to the Casian mountain above Syria, but on approaching more closely to grapple with the wounded foe, was enveloped in the snaky spires, borne off prisoner to Cilicia, and there confined in the Corycian cave. Released from durance by the arts of Hermes, he suddenly appeared in a chariot drawn by winged steeds; again he smote Typhon with his bolts, chased him to the mountain Nysa, from thence to Thracian Hamus, and at last, as he was fleeing through the Sicilian sea, crushed him beneath Etna. Finally, Poseidon having consorted with Iphimedeia, daughter of Aloeus, begat two sons, Otus and Ephialtes, styled the Aloida. These each year waxed in breadth a cubit, and in height a fathom, until having attained the age of nine years, and being nine cubits in breadth and nine fathoms in height, they took thought to war against the gods. They piled Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa, threatening that by these they would scale the heavens; and boasted, too, that heaping the sea over the mountains, they would make its bed dry land, but the land they would make sea. Ephialtes wooed Hera (Juno), and Otus Artemis. They imprisoned Ares (Mars), but Hermes stole him out. The Aloida were destroyed in Naxos by the wiles of Artemis, who, transforming herself into a deer, bounded between them; but they, thinking to take sure aim at the beast, shot each other. In reference to these legends, we may observe, I. That, according to the accounts here followed, the throne of heaven was occupied by a succession of different rulers. 1. By Uranus (Cœlus), who was mutilated, dethroned, and cast into Tartarus by his sons the Titans headed by Kronus. 2. By the Titans, with Kronus as their chief, who were in turn bereft of power and imprisoned in Tartarus by the Kronidæ (sons of Kronus) headed by Zeus. 3. By the Kronidæ, with Zeus as their chief. These last, supposed by the Greek poets to form the actual reigning dynasty, were exposed, before their power was firmly established, to a series of attacks. 1. From the Giants. 2. From the monster Typhon. 3. From the Aloida. We must remark, however, that the above narrative is not to be found in a connected form in any very ancient authority now extant, but was probably compiled by Apollodorus from various poets belonging to the Epic Cycle. Homer makes no reference to the ancient powers, Uranus and Gaia as lords of the universe,1 but he must have been acquainted with the 1 Unless it be in the term 'Ougavíaves II. V. 898, which appears to be there used to indicate the Titans. 2 myth of the Titanomachia, since several allusions to the imprisonment of Kronus and other Titans are to be found scattered over the Iliad.1 Of the Gigantomachia he seems to have known nothing, nor indeed is it clear what precise meaning he attached to the term "giant," which occurs in the Odyssey alone. We are there told, in the genealogy of Alcinous, that Eurymedon, the great-grandsire of the Phæacian monarch, "reigned over the high-souled giants," and perished along with that "haughty people." Again, the "wild tribes of giants" are casually and obscurely introduced in connection with the Cyclopes ;3 and, finally, the Læstrygons are described as being "like not unto men but unto giants." In the last passage, great stature seems to be indicated, but nowhere is a hint given of the serpent feet nor of the rebellion against the gods. The name of Typhon occurs when we are told that as the Grecian host advanced along the plain in battle array, Earth groaned beneath their tread, as when the god And lashes up the soil in Arima Around Typhoeus, where his couch is spread. The Aloids are twice mentioned; in the Iliad, where Dione tells her daughter how they cast Ares into a brazen dungeon, in which he pined for thirteen months, until Hermes stole him out; and in the Odyssey, where Ulysses beholds them in the realms of Hades. The description of Homer has been, in many particulars, followed by Apollodorus, but the former does not assert that they actually piled Ossa on Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa, but merely that they eagerly desired (or strove) so to do, in order that they might scale the heavens; and they would have accomplished their purpose had they attained to manhood, but they were slain by Apollo before the first down bloomed upon their cheeks. Virgil seems to follow Eratosthenes (see Schol. on Apollon. I. 484,) in making Otus and Ephialtes sons of Earth, for we read in G. I. 278, I See II. V. 898. VIII. 499. XIV. 203. 274. 2 Od. VII. 59, and Scholia. 3 Od. VII. 206, the true signification of this passage cannot be satisfactorily ascertained. 4 Od. X. 120. The wife of Antiphates is said to have been "vast as a mountain top.' 5 The Greek authorities, with regard to Typhon, have been collected by Jablonski Pantheon Ægyptiorum, Lib. V. cap. ii. § 1. 6 Apollodorus, as we have seen, asserts that they were slain by Artemis and so Callimach. Hymn. Dian. 204. On the other hand, Apollon. 1. 484. agrees with Homer. The story of the stag, as given by Apollodorus, is a later form of the legend. See Schol. on Hom. Od. XI. 317. Pausanias (IX. 22.) says that their tombs were at Anthedon in Boeotia. He is doubly mistaken, when he adds that Homer and Pindar agree in representing them to have been slain by Apollo in Naxos. Homer has not a word with regard to the place where they perished. Pindar simply says, that they died in Naxos. (Pyth. IV. 156.) |