The Cults of the Greek States

Belvidere Apollo, Steinhäuser head, Apollo on Pergamene frieze,
354-355.

REFERENCES FOR CHAPTERS IV-VII

356-454

LIST OF PLATES IN VOL. IV

PLATE

I. (a) Poseidon on horse, Corinthian Пíva.
(b) Poseidon on bull, Wurzburg amphora.

II. (a) Statuette in Augusteum, Dresden.

(b) Gem-representations of Poseidon with thunderbolt. III. (a) Corinthian Пívag, Poseidon with Hermes.

IV.

(6) Corinthian Пívag, Poseidon charging with trident.
Bronze from Corinthian gulf.

Bologna vase, Theseus, Amphitrite, Poseidon.

Vase in Cabinet des Médailles, Paris, Theseus and Poseidon.

Poseidon at the death of Talos on vase.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

Bronze from Dodona.

XII.

Dresden statue of Poseidon, wrongly restored as Asklepios.

XVII.

XVIII.

(b) Chiaramonti head.

Mosaic of Palermo.

Kertsch vase, Apollo and Dionysos at Delphi.

Thasos relief, Apollo with the Nymphs.

XIX. (a) Apollo, Artemis, Leto, Kourotrophos, on relief in Dresden. (6) Apollo, Artemis, Leto, on relief from Eretria.

XX.

Apollo with two flute-playing girls on Attic Stamnos in
Ashmolean Museum.

XXI. (a) Bearded Apollo on Melian vase.

(b) Apollo slaying Tityos on vase in Athens.

Archaic bronze of Apollo, probably Boeotian.

Boy-Apollo on British Museum Kylix.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

Bronze statuette of Apollo of Kanachos, British Museum.

XXXV.

Chatsworth bronze head of Apollo.

Apollo on pyxis in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

XXXVI. (a) Apollo on vase in Naples.

(6) Apollo on gold cup in Bucharest.

Apollo receiving libation from Artemis, vase in Cabinet des
Médailles, Paris.

Apollo on vase in Naples.

Apollo receiving libation from Artemis, vase in Ashmolean
Museum.

Mausoleum head of Apollo.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

Apollo Kitharoedos of Munich.

THE

CULTS OF THE GREEK STATES

CHAPTER I

CULT OF POSEIDON

(References, pp. 73-97.)

THE study of the Poseidon-cult in Hellas is of more value for the Greek historian than for the student of the higher religions of mankind. It lacks the spiritual and ethical interest of some of the Olympian cults, and from the earliest to the latest period Poseidon remains comparatively a backward god, never intimately associated with the nation's intellectual advance. But the ritual presents us with certain facts of great interest. And early Greek ethnography and the history of the earliest migrations of Hellenic tribes can gather much from a minute inquiry into the diffusion of this worship. Modern historians have become accustomed to use the facts of Greek religion as a clue for their researches into the period that precedes recorded history. But the criterion is often misapplied, and the value of it is still occasionally ignored. Much has still to be done in this branch of inquiry, and much may be effected if the evidence is severely scrutinized according to some fixed principles of criticism, and at the outset of this chapter it may be well to state and consider some of these. The historian of the earliest period, if he believes that he can extract anything from the religion and the mythology, has to reckon with three sources of possible evidence: with cult and ritual, with myth pure and simple, and finally with genealogical tables. Now the value of these sources is by no means equal. There appears to be a growing tendency both in continental and in English

historical scholarship to exaggerate the value of the last of these three. The unsupported argument from genealogies may be considered of all arguments the most inconclusive; the transmitters of these heroic family-trees were in most cases very late scribes who may have been drawing indeed from earlier authorities, but who were dealing with facts which were especially exposed to various influences making for falsification. And often the genealogies are so complex and contradictory that one can prove from them anything one wishes, and to inspect them is like looking through a kaleidoscope. On the other hand, when the genealogy is simple, clear, and well attested it has a certain value as a clue. It cannot yield proof unless it is fertilized by a prevailing stream of myth, or corroborated by definite cult-associations or by place-names. Again, the ethnographic value of mere mythology may easily be overstated, though the present reaction against the contemptuous scepticism of a former generation is wholesome and just. Myth is volatile and flies easily over a wide area; therefore the common possession of one or two myths will not prove tribal affinity or even the contiguity of tribes. A large store of common myths does indeed afford cumulative evidence, especially when the myths are peculiar, belonging rather to the by-paths of national legend. But here also it is only when the myth is associated with actual cult that the ethnographic argument arrives at proof. Cult is more stable than myth and not so easily transmitted by mere casual intercourse; and we are dealing with more solid fact here than in arguing from genealogies. But here also it is easy to be misled. If we accepted, for instance, the theory that has been held by recent writers of monotheistic totemism, and believed that every Greek tribe was in its earliest stage totemistic and worshipped one god only, the totem-god, then the possession by one community of various deities or the common possession by different communities of the same deity would prove some kind of tribal fusion, and it might

Pausanias (8. 53, 5) complains of

Ἑλλήνων λόγοι διάφοροι τὰ πλέονα καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα ἐπὶ τοῖς γένεσίν εἰσι.

b By Dr. Jevons, for instance, in his Introduction to the Study of Religion.

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