MYTHOLOGY AND MONUMENTS

MYTHOLOGY & MONUMENTSOF

ANCIENT ATHENSBEING A TRANSLATION OF A PORTION OF THE'ATTICA' OF PAD SAN I ASBY

MARGARET

DE

G.

VERRALL

WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AND ARCH/EOLOGICAL COMMENTARYliY

JANEMYTHS OF THE'

E.

HARRISONIN

AUTHOR OFODYSSF.V,'

INTRODUCTORY STUDIES

GREEK

ART,' ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

Hondoti

MACMILLAN ANDAND NEW YORKI

CO.

890

All rights reserved

TO

THOSE

WHO HAVE TAUGHT MEI

DEDICATE

THIS BOOKJ. E.

H.

ADDENDA ET CORRIGENDAPagexlvi, line

31

For23

'

StamatovurzV read'

'

Stamatovuw?.''

Page

cxxxviii, lineline

For

tradition

and coinage' read

tradition

and cu Itus.'

Page 441,

20

'I believe him to be the symbol of Poseidon's spring.

This idea was suggested tosupport ofJahrbiich.it

me by

Mr. Cecil Smith.in

The argumentsin

in

will

be stated by him

a paper shortly to appear

the

Page 444 and passim

For

'

Cephu^us' read the

earlier

form

'

Cephims.'

Page 517,

line

10

After 'do' read 'so.'

NOTE

i.

The map

of Athens

is

taken in part from Dr. Baumgarten'salterations

Rund-

gang durch Athen, but with many

and additions;

;

the plan

of the Dipylon from the Guide Joanne, Athhtes

the plan of the theatre

from Baumeister's Denkmdler, but with the addition of the orchestra.

NOTE

2.

Inscriptions are facsimiled only

when

they appear in the plates.

PREFACEI

HAVE

tried

by the

titleis,

chosen to express the exact purportfirst

of

my

book.

Its object

and foremost,I

to elucidate the

Mythology of Athens, and with this intent its Monuments, taking Pausanias as a guide.

have examined

I am anxious to make this clear, because to produce an adequate archaeological edition even of one book of Pausanias would have been in some respects beyond my scope. Such

an

archaeologicalat

commentary wouldonce

demand

a

scholar

who should bepetence, atfirst

philologist, topographer, epigraphist,

architect, as well as mythologist

hand,

is

and mythographist. My comconfined to the last two branches ofbeen ratherown.

classical learning.

My

work

as regards the other departments has

to weigh the opinions of others than to originate

my

The

Commentary

is

addressed, not to the professional archaeologist,I

but to the student, whose needs mind. On the other hand, inventure to hope the specialistcriticism.

have constantly borne inthe

Mythological Essay

I

may

find material

worthy of his

As

regards this Essay,

I

have

laid special stress

on threenovel to

points, the first of

which:

at least

may be somewhat

the English readerFirst, I

have dealt specially with vase-paintings asall,

sources.

The

study of vase-paintings at

so long seriously pursued

ii

PREFACEis

by (ierman archaeologists,their study as sourcesis

new among

us.

Even abroad

in its infancy.

We

are accustomed to

turn to the pages of epic poets and tragedians as evidence for the date of a myth ; we make little use of the contemporary

and sometimes

prior sources of art,

and

specially ceramography.is,

The

myth has not appeared on a vase-painting of the fifth century B.C., to conclude offhand that the myth was not current at the time. To employtheir evidence atall, the mythologist must have a thorough of ceramography in general, of the principles of knowledge typography, and the conditions under which it developed.

use of vase-paintings as sources It does not do, because a difficulties.

I

admit, beset with

All

this

is

not learnt in a day.is

To employanyscientific

a vase

hap-

hazard as an illustration

for

purpose often

worse than

useless.

problemssions

in the mythologist's

In the matter of suggestion, in raising mind which from literary ver-

might

scientific value.

never have occurred, lies, I think, their chief This I hope to have abundantly shown in

the myths of Triptolemos, of Procne

and Philomela, of Prokris

and Kephalos.I have tried, in dealing with literary sources, to with the greatest care early and late versions, and distinguish to disentangle the often almost hopelessly intricate web that

Second,

In our logographers and Latin -poets have woven for us. or our Smith a myth is given in its final form, Lempriere always as a connected story, with occasional references toties

Homer, Sophocles, Ovid, Hyginus, as if they were all authoriof equal value and contemporaneous date. No attempt is made to arrive at primitive form and trace its development, to formulate and eliminate constantly -recurring factors, tocontaminatio," to trace in the modification of myth either the political purpose of the statesman or the personal tendency of a Euripides or a Pindar. In fact, mythology is treated as if it were a crystallised form, almostdetect

Roman

"

PREFACEa dogma, instead of the mostgrowths.vital

in

and

pliable

of

human

Third, I have tried everywhere to get at, where possible, the cult as the explanation of the legend. My belief is that in many, even in the large majority of cases ritual practiceI hope to misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. have given salient instances of this in the myths of Erich-

thonios,

stories therise,

of Aletis, and of Kephalos. Some of the loveliest Greeks have left us will be seen to have taken their

and, I

not in poetic imagination, but in primitive, often savage, In this matter in think, always practical ritual.

regarding the myth-making Greek as a practical savage rather I follow, quam longo intervallo, than a poet or philosopher in the steps of Eusebius, Lobeck, Mannhardt, and Mr. Andrew

Lang.first,

The nomina numina methodbecauseI

I;

have utterly discarded

and second, because, philologist whatever partial success may await it in the future, a method That I so long over- driven may well lie by for a time.to

am no

have been unable, except for occasional illustration, to apply my examination of cults the comparative method is matter

of deep regret to me,conviction.I

and

is

due

to lack of time, not lack of

may perhaps be allowed to ask that my present be only taken as prolegomena to a more systematic attemptsstudy.

have attempted the examination of Athenian local cults only. It may surprise some that in an essay on such a subject no place is given to Athene. The reason is simply thisI

Athene was not the object of a merely local cult, as Cecrops was. She reigned at Athens as one of the orthodox Olympianhierarchy nay, more, there is constant and abundant evidence of her forcible propagandist entrance, of her suppression of Poseidon, her affiliation of Erechtheus. Any examination of

be of

Athene's mythology would include the Homeric system, and far wider scope than the analysis of a local cult. Athene

iv

PREFACEmentionedin

isis

her place on the Acropolis, just as Dionysos

treated of in his templesrule throughout has

My

been

and theatre, Asklepios in his hieron. to examine the stranger gods

only as they occur in the text of Pausanias, and to reserve all thorough investigation of local mythology for the Essay. In this matter of the distinction between popular local cults with theirendless diversity and the orthodox and ultimately dominant Olympian hierarchy I should be ungrateful if I did not acknow-

ledge"

my

Studies,

a

deep debt to Sir Charles LyalPs fascinating Asiatic book that shows a marvellous insight into the"

tangled jungle

of classic polytheism.

The

twelve orthodox

Olympian gods have so imposed themselves upon our modern imagination that it is perhaps only those who, like Sir CharlescanLyall in India, have watched mythology in the making realise a classical world peopled, not by the stately

whoand

plastic figures of Zeus, Hera, Artemis, Apollo, Athene, and Hephaistos, but by a motley gathering of demi-gods and deifiedsaints,

how

household gods, tribal gods, local gods, and can note these live on as an undercurrent even after the regular

hierarchy, with its fixed attributes and definite departments, has been superimposed by some dominant system. With respect to the Commentary, my definitely mythological

purpose

will,

I

hope, explain

some apparent

inconsistencies.

My

aim has been

to discuss in full detail every topographical

point that could bear

upon mythology, and, for the