There is, perhaps, enough of resemblance between the Scamander of the Trojan mythology, and the Spercheus or Alpheus of the Greek, to suggest the question, whether the deification of this river may possibly have been due to the Hellic influences, which resided in the royal houses of the country. There are not wanting signs, that the family of Priam was closely connected with the river and its banks. The name given to Hector’s child is one such token; and we know that the mares of Erichthonius were fed upon the marshes near Scamander[318]. It is also worth observation that the Priest of Scamander was called Dolopion, while Dolops was the name of a son of Lampus, a Trojan of the highest rank, brother to Priam, and one of the δημογέροντες of Troy[319]. [318] Il. xx. 221. [319] Il. iii. 147-9. xv. 525-7. But though there may be a special relation between the worship of Scamander, and the influence of the royal family, I think the explanation is chiefly to be sought in the specific differences which separate it from River-worship, as generally conceived in the Olympian system. There is another aspect of River-worship in Greece, with which it seems to have more affinity. There is the terrible adjuration of Styx, which implies its vindictive agency[320]. This river is represented on earth by a branch from itself, called Titaresius, near the Perrhæbian Dodona[321]. The Rivers are expressly invoked, in this character, by Agamemnon in the adjuration of the Pact: and are associated with the deities that punish perjury after death. Moreover, it is curious that, when Agamemnon makes an adjuration before Greeks alone, he omits the appeal to the Rivers, whom he had named when he was acting for the two peoples jointly[322]. This seems to show that the invocation of Rivers, or of some class of Rivers, in a retributive capacity, was familiar, and may have been peculiar, to the Trojans. [320] Il. xiv. 271. xv. 37. [321] Il. 2. 751-5. [322] Compare Il. iii. 276. xix. 258. ~_True aspect of Trojan River-worship._~ In effect, then, the grand distinction seems to be this. The worship of Scamander in Troas belonged to the elemental system and earth-worship, which the Greeks, for the purposes of their Olympus, had refined away into a poetical vivifying Power, replete with more bland influences: retaining it, more or less, for the purpose of adjuration, in the darker and sterner sense. Accordingly, while Scamander, who is also called Xanthus, has, as a god, a mark of antiquity in the double name[323], he shows none of the Greek anthropophuistic ingredients. Even for speech and action, he does not take the human form; but he is, simply and strictly, the element alive. [323] Il. xx. 74.