Chapter 2 No.2

Recent Treatment of the Greek Myths.

The newer histories 28

Not justifiable without particular reasons 28

Max Duncker 28

Not suited to English readers 29

Busolt and Holm 29

Return to Grote 30

Holm's postulate 30

The modern attitude 31

Pure invention a rare occurrence 31

Plausible fiction therefore not an adequate cause 32

Cases of deliberate invention, at Pergamum, which breed general suspicion of marvellous stories 32

Example of a trustworthy legend from Roman history 33

Niebuhr, Arnold, Mommsen 34

The rex sacrorum at Rome 34

The king-archon at Athens 35

Legends of foreign immigrants 35

Corroborative evidence of art, but not of language 35

Corroboration of legends in architecture 37

Explanation of myths by the solar theory 37

The analogy of Indian and Persian mythology, expounded by Professor Max Müller, founded on very wide learning 38

long since shown inadequate, because it implies sentimental savages, which is contrary to our experience 39

K. O. Müller's contribution 40

The transference of myths 41

Old anecdotes doing fresh duty 41

Example from the Trojan legend 41

but not therefore false 42

The contribution of Dr. Schliemann 42

History not an exact science 43

Historical value of the Homeric poems 44

Mycen? preserved in legend only 44

General teaching of the epic poems 44

Social life in Greece 45

Alleged artificiality of the poems 45

Examples from the Iliad 45

not corroborated by recent discoveries 46

Fick's account of the Homeric dialect 46

Difficulties in the theory 47

Analogies in its favour 48

Its application to the present argument 48

Illustration from English poetry 49

The use of stock epithets 49

High excellence incompatible with artificiality 50

The Homeric poems therefore mainly natural 50

but only generally true 51

and therefore variously judged by various minds 52