idealised in art. The mythopoeic
fancy invented no fable for him. His cult was parasitic upon elder
cults. He was the colleague of greater well-established deities,
from whom he borrowed a pale and evanescent lustre. Speaking
accurately, he was a hero or divinised mortal, on the same grade as
Helen immortalised for her beauty, as Achilles for his prowess, or
as Herakles for his great deeds. But having no poet like Homer to
sing his achievements, no myth fertile in emblems, he dwelt beneath
the shadow of superior powers, and crept into a place with them.
What was this place worth? What was the meaning attached by his
votaries to the title [Greek: synthronos] or [Greek: paredros
theos]? According to the simple meaning of both epithets, he
occupied a seat together with or by the side of the genuine
Olympians. In this sense Pindar called Dionysus the [Greek:
paredros] of Demeter, because the younger god had been admitted to
her worship on equal terms at Eleusis. In this sense Sophocles spoke
of Himeros as [Greek: paredros] of the eternal laws, and of Justice
as [Greek: synoikos] with the Chthonian deities. In this sense
Euripides makes Helen [Greek: xynthakos] with her brethren, the
Dioscuri. In this sense the three chief Archons at Athens were said
to have two [Greek: paredroi] apiece. In this sense, again,
Hephaestion was named a [Greek: theos paredros], and Alexander in his
lifetime was voted a thirteenth in the company of the twelve
Olympians. The divinised emperors were [Greek: paredroi] or [Greek:
synthronoi]; nor did Virgil hesitate to flatter Augustus by
questioning into which college of the immortals he would be adscript
after death--

Tuque adeo, quem mox quae sint habitura deorum
Concilia, incertum est.

Conscript deities of this heroic order were supposed to avert evils
from their votaries, to pursue offenders with calamity, to inspire
prophetic dreams, and to appear, as the phantom of Achilles appeared
to Apollonius of Tyana, and answer questions put to them. They
corresponded very closely and exactly to the saints of mediaevalism,
acting as patrons of cities, confraternities, and persons, and
interposing between the supreme powers of heaven and their especial
devotees. As a [Greek: paredros] of this exalted quality, Antinous
was the associate of Phoebus, Bacchus, and Hermes among the
Olympians, and a colleague with the gods of Nile. The principal
difficulty of grasping his true rank consists in the va