whose configuration we must discover, by calculation, the original form of the distorted image it presents.

It follows from this that we can find the most important transactions of the mythic period only through the explanation and combination of mythi. Without, therefore, comparing different mythi, and showing that they presuppose the same fact, complete certainty can scarcely be attained. Everything, indeed, here depends on the decision of how much is to be held as accidental; but this decision, also, is in many cases as sure and evident as can well be desired in an historical science. One example will make the matter clearer than a long train of general reasoning. If I learn that Apollo brought Cretans to Crissa, in order that they might administer for him the Pythian sanctuary; that the ancient Tilphossian altar of the god stood in a region where Cretans dwelt, according to native tradition; that there were in Lycia ancient Cretan settlements, and that the most notable worship of Apollo was established there; that the ancient citadel of Miletus was of Cretan foundation, and that here, at the same time, there was an oracle of Apollo; that the first mythic prophet of Clarus was called the son of a Cretan; that the landing of Cretans in Troas was said to have given rise to the worship of the Sminthian Apollo; that in Athens, the expedition of Theseus to Crete occasioned the establishment of several festivals in honour of Apollo, and still further data of the same kind from other quarters, I must be utterly obtuse in regard to all historical inquiry, if I would not draw the conclusion, that the Cretans in many places founded Apollinian rites.

But I

must also be a stranger to all knowledge of mythi, were I to raise the objection, that no mythus makes that statement directly and in plain terms. Hence the coincidence of two real things, the Cretans and the worship of Apollo, is only at all capable of explanation on the supposition of a real relation, i. e., the actual propagation of the worship by the tribe. Or we must entirely deny that all these were traditions, which, however, can be distinctly pointed out in several places; or, lastly, prove that such legends might perhaps have been introduced by a secret confederacy, whose design was to persuade everybody that the Cretans were the founders of Apollo's worship. He, however, who has reflected whether popular traditions can spring out of such persuasion, and has, besides, considered the great alterations which those traditions have undergone in the course of ages, as well as their deep local implication, will, before admitting such an idea, at least-demand the proof.

Combination, accordingly, can alone determine the value of legends for the ascertainment of facts; and in this field, therefore, it stands higher than all literary criticism, which is usually conducted in so onesided a manner, inasmuch as it alone affords certain criteria by which the legend springing out of the fact itself may be distinguished from its poetical modification. Of this also but one example. That the Dryopians had come to the Peloponnesus from the regions of Southern Thessaly, lying around Eta and the Spercheus, was a fact known to antiquity. Aristotle repeated the simple tradition that Dryops had con

1

3

ducted them thither. The ordinary heroic mythus was, that Hercules had expelled this people from the country of the Etaic Dorians or their neighbourhood, and that they had therefore come to the Peloponnesus. The following information, not, indeed, in contradiction to the prevailing tradition, but adding to it, however, a leading point, was first given by Pausanias, viz., that Hercules dedicated the vanquished Dryopians to the Delphian god, and only led them to the Peloponnesus in compliance with his behest. He does not tell us expressly where he obtained this information: the Asinæans, who at that time lived in Messenia, told a different story; and I do not know any writer, except Servius, who gives exactly the same statement.* He says, hi populi ab Hercule victi Apollini donati esse dicuntur. We have, therefore, to prove the legend by itself, and independently of all literary authority. Now, we know that there are many other instances of entire tribes having been actually dedicated to Apollo,5 and this might render the relation of Pausanias probable; but it may also be objected, that the legend was invented according to the analogy of existing circumstances. Secondly, By means of that relation the contradiction might be explained between the traditions, on the one hand, that the Dryopian prince, Leogoras, desecrated the sanctuary of Apollo, and the Dryopians made war on the Pythian temple; and, on the other, the historical fact that the worship of Apollo existed among the Dryopians in Argolis and

1 Strabo, viii. 373.

3 IV. 34. 6.

2 Herod., viii. 43. Strabo, ib. 4 Ad. Ænead., iv. 146.

5 Dor., vol. i.

p.

283-288.

1

3

Messenia, where Virgil, in accordance with the epic poets of Greece, even makes them serve the God at the Delian altars.2 This contradiction would, I say, be satisfactorily solved by the fact that the hostile tribe had been subject to him for a time, and the agreement is certainly not accidental; but it might still be said, that the story was just devised for the purpose of removing this contradiction, and the solution of the mythus is still by no means the correct one. This also granted, we beg that yet a third circumstance be considered. Although the relation in Antoninus is otherwise very romantic, this much, however, is clear from it, that, in the ancient territory of the Dryopians at Thermopylæ, there were legends about an ancient Dryopian hero, Cragaleus, to whom sacrifices were also offered up at Ambracia ; for, as is confirmed by Pliny and others, that place also was inhabited by Dryopians. Now, it is clear that this bears some relation to the tribe of Craugalidæ or Cragalidæ, (it does not appear to me improbable that it was also called Cragaleis,) which figures in the history of the sacred war (Ol. 47) in connexion with the Cirrhæans, and was, with these, extirpated by the Amphictyons, and rendered bondslaves to Apollo. These were evidently therefore ancient Dryopians, Dryopians in Cirrhæa, entirely as in Pausanias, and, like the Cirrhæans themselves, doubtless formerly attached to the temple, but who had now revolted, and were at war with its

1

Dor., vol. i. p. 286*.

2

Enead, iv. 143.

3 Lib. 4. Eschin., v. Ctesiphon, 68. Harpocr. Kavyaλdav, whence Kgavyáλov near Cirrha is referred to, according to Didymus and Xenagoras.

guardians. We could not, even had Pausanias said nothing of that dedication, avoid concluding something of the sort, from their very presence and their relations otherwise; and it is evident that what Pausanias relates is ancient tradition, and not, by any means, an invention of times in which the last trace of those Cirrhæan Craugalidæ had disappeared.

CHAPTER XIV.

Examples of the Method which has been laid down.

ALTHOUGH, throughout this entire work, I am not aware of having left a single position of any importance without the elucidation and corroboration which individual instances supply, I shall, however, subjoin one or two others which may clearly exemplify, in a general way, the process whose principles I have thus far laid down. I select for that purpose, in the first place, the mythus of Apollo's servitude; because I have explained it elsewhere, but perhaps too briefly. At least, a thinking scholar, Hermann, in his preface to Alcestis,1 has reproached me with having attempted this explanation incredibili quodam modo; and he finds the chief ground of his charge in this, that I more hodierno ad mysticæ religionis inexplicabilem doctrinam propenderem. Per

I P. xiv.