Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek RacesGladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
History
Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age, Vol. 1 of 3: I. Prolegomena II. Achæis; or, the Ethnology of the Greek Races
Gladstone, W. E. (William Ewart)
Civilization, Homeric; Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer
Both the name of the Perrhæbi and that of the river Titaresius fix the
Dodona of Homer in the north of Thessaly. And the character assigned
to this Titaresius, so near Dodona, as a branch of Styx, ‘the mighty
adjuration of the gods,’ well illustrates the close connection between
that river, by which the other deities were to swear, and Jupiter,
who was their chief, and was in a certain sense the administrator of
justice among them. In the Odyssey, indeed, Ulysses, in his fictitious
narrations to Eumæus and Penelope, represents himself as having
travelled from Thesprotia to consult the oracle of Jupiter, that was
delivered from a lofty oak[134]. But no presumption of nearness can be
founded on this passage such as to justify our assuming the existence
of a separate Dodona westward of the mountains in the Homeric age:
and there was no reason why Ulysses should not represent himself as
travelling through the passes of Mount Pindus[135] from the Ambracian
gulf into Thessaly to learn his fate. Nor upon the other hand is there
any vast difficulty in adopting the supposition which the evidence in
the case suggests, that the oracle of Dodonæan Jupiter may have changed
its seat before the historic age. The evidence of Homer places it in
Thessaly, and Homer is, as we shall see, corroborated by Hesiod. After
them, we hear nothing of a Dodona having its seat in Thessaly, but
much of one on the western side of the peninsula. As in later times we
find Perrhæbi and Dolopes to the westward of Pindus, whom Homer shows
us only on the east, even so in the course of time the oracle may have
travelled in the same direction[136]. It is highly improbable, from
the manner in which the name is used, that there should have been two
Greek Dodonas in the Homeric age.
However, the very passage before us indicates, that revolution
had already laid its hand on this ancient seat of Greek religion.
For though the Dodona of Homer was Pelasgic by its origin, its
neighbourhood was now inhabited by a different race, the Selli or
Helli, and these Helli were also the ὑποφῆται or ministers of the
deity. While their rude and filthy habits of life mark them as probably
a people of recent arrival, who had not themselves yet emerged from
their highland home, and from the struggle with want and difficulty,
into civilized life, still they had begun to encroach upon the
Pelasgians with their inviting possessions and more settled habits, and
had acquired by force or otherwise the control of the temple, though
without obliterating the tradition of its Pelasgic origin. The very
fact, that the Helli were at the time the ministers of Jupiter, tends
to confirm the belief that the Pelasgians were those who originally
established it; for how otherwise could the name of the Pelasgian race
have found its way into an Hellenic invocation?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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