A temple was dedicated to her on the Aventine hill by Servius Tullius, who
is said to have first introduced the worship of this divinity into Rome.
The Nemoralia, or Grove Festivals, were celebrated in her honour on the
13th of August, on the Lacus Nemorensis, or forest-buried lake, near
Aricia. The priest who officiated in her temple on this spot, was always a
fugitive slave, who had gained his office by murdering his predecessor, and
hence was constantly armed, in order that he might thus be prepared to
encounter a new aspirant.
HEPHÆSTUS (VULCAN).
Hephæstus, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of fire in its beneficial
aspect, and the presiding deity over all workmanship accomplished by means
of this useful element. He was universally honoured, not only as the {98}
god of all mechanical arts, but also as a house and hearth divinity, who
exercised a beneficial influence on civilized society in general. Unlike
the other Greek divinities, he was ugly and deformed, being awkward in his
movements, and limping in his gait. This latter defect originated, as we
have already seen, in the wrath of his father Zeus, who hurled him down
from heaven[35] in consequence of his taking the part of Hera, in one of
the domestic disagreements, which so frequently arose between this royal
pair. Hephæstus was a whole day falling from Olympus to the earth, where he
at length alighted on the island of Lemnos. The inhabitants of the country,
seeing him descending through the air, received him in their arms; but in
spite of their care, his leg was broken by the fall, and he remained ever
afterwards lame in one foot. Grateful for the kindness of the Lemnians, he
henceforth took up his abode in their island, and there built for himself a
superb palace, and forges for the pursuit of his avocation. He instructed
the people how to work in metals, and also taught them other valuable and
useful arts.
It is said that the first work of Hephæstus was a most ingenious throne of
gold, with secret springs, which he presented to Hera.
It was arranged in
such a manner that, once seated, she found herself unable to move, and
though all the gods endeavoured to extricate her, their efforts were
unavailing. Hephæstus thus revenged himself on his mother for the cruelty
she had always displayed towards him, on account of his want of comeliness
and grace. Dionysus, the wine god, contrived, however, to intoxicate
Hephæstus, and then induced him to return to Olympus, where, after having
released the {99} queen of heaven from her very undignified position, he
became reconciled to his parents.
He now built for himself a glorious palace on Olympus, of shining gold, and
made for the other deities those magnificent edifices which they inhabited.
He was assisted in his various and exquisitely skilful works of art, by two
female statues of pure gold, formed by his own hand, which possessed the
power of motion, and always accompanied him wherever he went. With the
assistance of the Cyclops, he forged for Zeus his wonderful thunderbolts,
thus investing his mighty father with a new power of terrible import. Zeus
testified his appreciation of this precious gift, by bestowing upon
Hephæstus the beautiful Aphrodite in marriage,[36] but this was a
questionable boon; for the lovely Aphrodite, who was the personification of
all grace and beauty, felt no affection for her ungainly and unattractive
spouse, and amused herself by ridiculing his awkward movements and
unsightly person. On one occasion especially, when Hephæstus good-naturedly
took upon himself the office of cup-bearer to the gods, his hobbling gait
and extreme awkwardness created the greatest mirth amongst the celestials,
in which his disloyal partner was the first to join, with unconcealed
merriment.
Aphrodite greatly preferred Ares to her husband, and this preference
naturally gave rise to much jealousy on the part of Hephæstus, and caused
them great unhappiness.
Hephæstus appears to have been an indispensable member of the Olympic
Assembly, where he plays the part of smith, armourer, chariot-builder, &c.
As already mentioned, he constructed the palaces where the gods resided,
fashioned the golden shoes with which they trod the air or water, built for
them their wonderful chariots, and shod with brass the horses of celestial
breed, which conveyed these glittering equipages over land and sea. He also
made the tripods which moved of themselves in and out of the celestial
halls, formed for Zeus the {100} far-famed ægis, and erected the
magnificent palace of the sun. He also created the brazen-footed bulls of
Aetes, which breathed flames from their nostrils, sent forth clouds of
smoke, and filled the air with their roaring.
Among his most renowned works of art for the use of mortals were: the
armour of Achilles and Æneas, the beautiful necklace of Harmonia, and the
crown of Ariadne; but his masterpiece was Pandora, of whom a detailed
account has already been given.
[Illustration]
There was a temple on Mount Etna erected in his honour, which none but the
pure and virtuous were permitted to enter. The entrance to this temple was
guarded by dogs, which possessed the extraordinary faculty of being able to
discriminate between the righteous and the unrighteous, fawning upon and
caressing the good, whilst they rushed upon all evil-doers and drove them
away.
Hephæstus is usually represented as a powerful, brawny, and very muscular
man of middle height and mature age; his strong uplifted arm is raised in
the act of striking the anvil with a hammer, which he holds in one hand,
whilst with the other he is turning a thunderbolt, which an eagle beside
him is waiting to carry to Zeus. The principal seat of his worship was the
island of Lemnos, where he was regarded with peculiar veneration.
VULCAN.
The Roman Vulcan was merely an importation from Greece, which never at any
time took firm root in Rome, nor entered largely into the actual life and
sympathies of the nation, his worship being unattended by the devotional
feeling and enthusiasm which characterized the religious rites of the other
deities. He still, however, retained in Rome his {101}
Greek attributes as
god of fire, and unrivalled master of the art of working in metals, and was
ranked among the twelve great gods of Olympus, whose gilded statues were
arranged consecutively along the Forum. His Roman name, Vulcan, would seem
to indicate a connection with the first great metal-working artificer of
Biblical history, Tubal-Cain.
POSEIDON (NEPTUNE).
Poseidon was the son of Kronos and Rhea, and the brother of Zeus. He was
god of the sea, more particularly of the Mediterranean, and, like the
element over which he presided, was of a variable disposition, now
violently agitated, and now calm and placid, for which reason he is
sometimes represented by the poets as quiet and composed, and at others as
disturbed and angry.
[Illustration]
In the earliest ages of Greek mythology, he merely symbolized the watery
element; but in later times, as navigation and intercourse with other
nations engendered greater traffic by sea, Poseidon gained in importance,
and came to be regarded as a distinct divinity, holding indisputable
dominion over the sea, and over all sea-divinities, who acknowledged him as
their sovereign ruler. He possessed the power of causing at will, mighty
and destructive tempests, in which the billows rise mountains high, the
wind becomes a hurricane, land and sea being enveloped in thick mists,
whilst destruction assails the unfortunate mariners exposed to their fury.
On the other hand, his alone was the power of stilling the angry {102}
waves, of soothing the troubled waters, and granting safe voyages to
mariners. For this reason, Poseidon was always invoked and propitiated by a
libation before a voyage was undertaken, and sacrifices and thanksgivings
were gratefully offered to him after a safe and prosperous journey by sea.
The symbol of his power was the fisherman's fork or trident,[37] by means
of which he produced earthquakes, raised up islands from the bottom of the
sea, and caused wells to spring forth out of the earth.
Poseidon was essentially the presiding deity over fishermen, and was on
that account, more particularly worshipped and revered in countries
bordering on the sea-coast, where fish naturally formed a staple commodity
of trade. He was supposed to vent his displeasure by sending disastrous
inundations, which completely destroyed whole countries, and were usually
accompanied by terrible marine monsters, who swallowed up and devoured
those whom the floods had spared. It is probable that these sea-monsters
are the poetical figures which represent the demons of hunger and famine,
necessarily accompanying a general inundation.
Poseidon is generally represented as resembling his brother Zeus in
features, height, and general aspect; but we miss in the countenance of the
sea-god the kindness and benignity which so pleasingly distinguish his
mighty brother. The eyes are bright and piercing, and the contour of the
face somewhat sharper in its outline than that of Zeus, thus corresponding,
as it were, with his more angry and violent nature. His hair waves in dark,
disorderly masses over his shoulders; his chest is broad, and his frame
powerful and stalwart; he wears a short, curling beard, and a band round
his head. He usually appears standing erect in a graceful shell-chariot,
drawn by hippocamps, or sea-horses, with golden manes and brazen hoofs, who
bound over the dancing waves with such wonderful swiftness, that the
chariot scarcely touches {103} the water. The monsters of the deep,
acknowledging their mighty lord, gambol playfully around him, whilst the
sea joyfully smooths a path for the passage of its all-powerful ruler.
[Illustration]
He inhabited a beautiful palace at the bottom of the sea at Ægea in Euboea,
and also possessed a royal residence on Mount Olympus, which, however, he
only visited when his presence was required at the council of the gods.
His wonderful palace beneath the waters was of vast extent; in its lofty
and capacious halls thousands of his followers could assemble. The exterior
of the building was of bright gold, which the continual wash of the waters
preserved untarnished; in the interior, lofty and graceful columns
supported the gleaming dome. Everywhere fountains of glistening, silvery
water played; everywhere groves and arbours of feathery-leaved sea-plants
appeared, whilst rocks of pure crystal glistened with all the varied
colours of the rainbow. Some of the paths were strewn with white sparkling
sand, interspersed with jewels, pearls, and amber. This delightful abode
was surrounded on all sides by wide fields, where there were whole groves
of dark purple coralline, and tufts of beautiful scarlet-leaved plants, and
sea-anemones of every tint. Here grew bright, pinky sea-weeds, mosses of
all hues and shades, and tall grasses, which, growing upwards, formed
emerald caves and grottoes such as the Nereides love, whilst fish of
various kinds playfully darted in and out, in the full enjoyment of their
native element. Nor was illumination wanting in this fairy-like region,
which at night was lit up by the glow-worms of the deep.
But although Poseidon ruled with absolute power over the ocean and its
inhabitants, he nevertheless bowed submissively to the will of the great
ruler of Olympus, and appeared at all times desirous of conciliating him.
We {104} find him coming to his aid when emergency demanded, and frequently
rendering him valuable assistance against his opponents.
At the time when
Zeus was harassed by the attacks of the Giants, he proved himself a most
powerful ally, engaging in single combat with a hideous giant named
Polybotes, whom he followed over the sea, and at last succeeded in
destroying, by hurling upon him the island of Cos.
These amicable relations between the brothers were, however, sometimes
interrupted. Thus, for instance, upon one occasion Poseidon joined Hera and
Athene in a secret conspiracy to seize upon the ruler of heaven, place him
in fetters, and deprive him of the sovereign power. The conspiracy being
discovered, Hera, as the chief instigator of this sacrilegious attempt on
the divine person of Zeus, was severely chastised, and even beaten, by her
enraged spouse, as a punishment for her rebellion and treachery, whilst
Poseidon was condemned, for the space of a whole year, to forego his
dominion over the sea, and it was at this time that, in conjunction with
Apollo, he built for Laomedon the walls of Troy.
Poseidon married a sea-nymph named Amphitrite, whom he wooed under the form
of a dolphin. She afterwards became jealous of a beautiful maiden called
Scylla, who was beloved by Poseidon, and in order to revenge herself she
threw some herbs into a well where Scylla was bathing, which had the effect
of metamorphosing her into a monster of terrible aspect, having twelve
feet, six heads with six long necks, and a voice which resembled the bark
of a dog. This awful monster is said to have inhabited a cave at a very
great height in the famous rock which still bears her name,[38] and was
supposed to swoop down from her rocky eminence upon every ship that passed,
and with each of her six heads to secure a victim.
Amphitrite is often represented assisting Poseidon in attaching the
sea-horses to his chariot.
{105}
The Cyclops, who have been already alluded to in the history of Cronus,
were the sons of Poseidon and Amphitrite. They were a wild race of gigantic
growth, similar in their nature to the earth-born Giants, and had only one
eye each in the middle of their foreheads. They led a lawless life,
possessing neither social manners nor fear of the gods, and were the
workmen of Hephæstus, whose workshop was supposed to be in the heart of the
volcanic mountain Ætna.
Here we have another striking instance of the manner in which the Greeks
personified the powers of nature, which they saw in active operation around
them. They beheld with awe, mingled with astonishment, the fire, stones,
and ashes which poured forth from the summit of this and other volcanic
mountains, and, with their vivacity of imagination, found a solution of the
mystery in the supposition, that the god of Fire must be busy at work with
his men in the depths of the earth, and that the mighty flames which they
beheld, issued in this manner from his subterranean forge.
The chief representative of the Cyclops was the man-eating monster
Polyphemus, described by Homer as having been blinded and outwitted at last
by Odysseus. This monster fell in love with a beautiful nymph called
Galatea; but, as may be supposed, his addresses were not acceptable to the
fair maiden, who rejected them in favour of a youth named Acis, upon which
Polyphemus, with his usual barbarity, destroyed the life of his rival by
throwing upon him a gigantic rock. The blood of the murdered Acis, gushing
out of the rock, formed a stream which still bears his name.
Triton, Rhoda,[39] and Benthesicyme were also children of Poseidon and
Amphitrite.
The sea-god was the father of two giant sons called Otus and Ephialtes.[40]
When only nine years old they {106} were said to be twenty-seven cubits[41]
in height and nine in breadth. These youthful giants were as rebellious as
they were powerful, even presuming to threaten the gods themselves with
hostilities. During the war of the Gigantomachia, they endeavoured to scale
heaven by piling mighty mountains one upon another.
Already had they
succeeded in placing Mount Ossa on Olympus and Pelion on Ossa, when this
impious project was frustrated by Apollo, who destroyed them with his
arrows. It was supposed that had not their lives been thus cut off before
reaching maturity, their sacrilegious designs would have been carried into
effect.
Pelias and Neleus were also sons of Poseidon. Their mother Tyro was
attached to the river-god Enipeus, whose form Poseidon assumed, and thus
won her love. Pelias became afterwards famous in the story of the
Argonauts, and Neleus was the father of Nestor, who was distinguished in
the Trojan War.
The Greeks believed that it was to Poseidon they were indebted for the
existence of the horse, which he is said to have produced in the following
manner: Athene and Poseidon both claiming the right to name Cecropia (the
ancient name of Athens), a violent dispute arose, which was finally settled
by an assembly of the Olympian gods, who decided that whichever of the
contending parties presented mankind with the most useful gift, should
obtain the privilege of naming the city. Upon this Poseidon struck the
ground with his trident, and the horse sprang forth in all his untamed
strength and graceful beauty. From the spot which Athene touched with her
wand, issued the olive-tree, whereupon the gods unanimously awarded to her
the victory, declaring her gift to be the emblem of peace and plenty,
whilst that of Poseidon was thought to be the symbol of war and {107}
bloodshed. Athene accordingly called the city Athens, after herself, and it
has ever since retained this name.
Poseidon tamed the horse for the use of mankind, and was believed to have
taught men the art of managing horses by the bridle. The Isthmian games (so
named because they were held on the Isthmus of Corinth), in which horse and
chariot races were a distinguishing feature, were instituted in honour of
Poseidon.
He was more especially worshipped in the Peloponnesus, though universally
revered throughout Greece and in the south of Italy. His sacrifices were
generally black and white bulls, also wild boars and rams. His usual
attributes are the trident, horse, and dolphin.
In some parts of Greece this divinity was identified with the sea-god
Nereus, for which reason the Nereides, or daughters of Nereus, are
represented as accompanying him.
NEPTUNE.
The Romans worshipped Poseidon under the name of Neptune, and invested him
with all the attributes which belong to the Greek divinity.
The Roman commanders never undertook any naval expedition without
propitiating Neptune by a sacrifice.
His temple at Rome was in the Campus Martius, and the festivals
commemorated in his honour were called Neptunalia.
* * * * *
SEA DIVINITIES.
OCEANUS.
Oceanus was the son of Uranus and Gæa. He was the personification of the
ever-flowing stream, which, according to the primitive notions of the early
Greeks, encircled the world, and from which sprang all the rivers and
streams that watered the earth. He was married to Tethys, one of the
Titans, and was the father of a {108} numerous progeny called the
Oceanides, who are said to have been three thousand in number. He alone, of
all the Titans, refrained from taking part against Zeus in the
Titanomachia, and was, on that account, the only one of the primeval
divinities permitted to retain his dominion under the new dynasty.
NEREUS.
Nereus appears to have been the personification of the sea in its calm and
placid moods, and was, after Poseidon, the most important of the
sea-deities. He is represented as a kind and benevolent old man, possessing
the gift of prophecy, and presiding more particularly over the Ægean Sea,
of which he was considered to be the protecting spirit.
There he dwelt with
his wife Doris and their fifty blooming daughters, the Nereides, beneath
the waves in a beautiful grotto-palace, and was ever ready to assist
distressed mariners in the hour of danger.
PROTEUS.
Proteus, more familiarly known as "The Old Man of the Sea," was a son of
Poseidon, and gifted with prophetic power. But he had an invincible
objection to being consulted in his capacity as seer, and those who wished
him to foretell events, watched for the hour of noon, when he was in the
habit of coming up to the island of Pharos,[42] with Poseidon's flock of
seals, which he tended at the bottom of the sea.
Surrounded by these
creatures of the deep, he used to slumber beneath the grateful shade of the
rocks. This was the favourable moment to seize the prophet, who, in order
to avoid importunities, would change himself into an infinite variety of
forms. But patience gained the day; for if he were only held long enough,
he became wearied at last, and, resuming his true form, gave the
information desired, after which he dived down again to the bottom of the
sea, accompanied by the animals he tended.
{109}
[Illustration]
TRITON and the TRITONS.
Triton was the only son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, but he possessed little
influence, being altogether a minor divinity. He is usually represented as
preceding his father and acting as his trumpeter, using a conch-shell for
this purpose. He lived with his parents in their beautiful golden palace
beneath the sea at Ægea, and his favourite pastime was to ride over the
billows on horses or sea-monsters. Triton is always represented as half
man, half fish, the body below the waist terminating in the tail of a
dolphin. We frequently find mention of Tritons who are either the offspring
or kindred of Triton.
GLAUCUS.
Glaucus is said to have become a sea-divinity in the following manner.
While angling one day, he observed that the fish he caught and threw on the
bank, at once nibbled at the grass and then leaped back into the water. His
curiosity was naturally excited, and he proceeded to gratify it by taking
up a few blades and tasting them. No sooner was this done than, obeying an
irresistible impulse, he precipitated himself into the deep, and became a
sea-god.
Like most sea-divinities he was gifted with prophetic power, and each year
visited all the islands and coasts with a train of marine monsters,
foretelling all kinds of evil. Hence fishermen dreaded his approach, and
endeavoured, by prayer and fasting, to avert the misfortunes which he
prophesied. He is often represented floating on the billows, his body
covered with mussels, sea-weed, and shells, wearing a full beard and long
flowing hair, and bitterly bewailing his immortality.
{110}
THETIS.
The silver-footed, fair-haired Thetis, who plays an important part in the
mythology of Greece, was the daughter of Nereus, or, as some assert, of
Poseidon. Her grace and beauty were so remarkable that Zeus and Poseidon
both sought an alliance with her; but, as it had been foretold that a son
of hers would gain supremacy over his father, they relinqu