t all the forces and phenomena are conceived of by them as
PERSONS. In this regard the archaic and savage view of all things as
personal and human is preserved. "I maintain," says Grote, "moreover,
fully the character of these great divine agents as persons, which is
the light in which they presented themselves to the Homeric or Hesiodic
audience. Uranus, Nyx, Hypnos and Oneiros (heaven, night, sleep and
dream) are persons just as much as Zeus or Apollo. To resolve them into
mere allegories is unsafe and unprofitable. We then depart from the
point of view of the original hearers without acquiring any consistent
or philosophical point of view of our own." This holds good though
portions of the Hesiodic genealogies are distinctly poetic allegories
cast in the mould or the ancient personal theory of things.

(3) Iliad, xv. 187.

(4) The custom by which sons drew lots for equal shares of their dead
father's property is described in Odyssey, xiv. 199-212. Here Odysseus,
giving a false account of himself, says that he was a Cretan, a bastard,
and that his half-brothers, born in wedlock, drew lots for their
father's inheritance, and did not admit him to the drawing, but gave him
a small portion apart.

(5) See Elton, Origins of English History, pp. 185-207.

We now turn from Homer's incidental allusions to the ample and
systematic narrative of Hesiod. As Mr. Grote says, "Men habitually
took their information respecting their theogonic antiquities from the
Hesiodic poems." Hesiod was accepted as an authority both by the pious
Pausanias in the second century of our era--who protested against any
attempt to alter stories about the gods--and by moral reformers like
Plato and Xenophanes, who were revolted by the ancient legends,(1)
and, indeed, denied their truth. Yet, though Hesiod represents Greek
orthodoxy, we have observed that Homer (whose epics are probably still
more ancient) steadily ignores the more barbarous portions of Hesiod's
narrative. Thus the question arises: Are the stories of
Hesiod's invention, and later than Homer, or does Homer's genius
half-unconsciously purify materials like those which Hesiod presents
in the crudest form? Mr. Grote says: "How far these stories are the
invention of Hesiod himself it is impossible to determine. They bring us
down to a cast of fancy more coarse and indelicate than the Homeric, and
more nearly resemble some of the holy chapters ((Greek text omitted))
of the more recent mys