The-mythology-of-ancient-greece-and-italy-thomas-keightley

HISTORIC VIEW. 23
The priests derived their lineage from Crete, whence they
had been brought by Zeus after he had succeeded his prede
cessors Uranos and Kronos in the empire of the world. In
the midst of the grove already described, and at a distance of
sixty stadia from the chief town, stood an ancient and mag
nificent temple sacred to Triphylian Zeus, erected by the god
himself while he was yet among men ; and on a golden pillar
in the temple the deeds of Uranos, Zeus, Artemis, and Apollo
had been inscribed by Hermes in Panchaeic letters, which the
voyager says were the same with the sacred characters of the
Egyptian priests. Zeus had, according to this monument,
been the most potent of monarchs : the chief seat of his do
minion had been Crete, where he died and was buried, after
having made five progresses through the world, all whose
kings feared and obeyed him.
The object of Euhemerus in inventing this Utopia, which
by the way many navigators sought after but no one ever
found, was evidently to give a blow to the popular religion,
and even to make it ridiculous ; for though he seems to have
treated some of the higher gods, as Zeus for example, with
a degree of respect, he was less particular with the infe
rior ones and with the heroes. Thus of Aphrodite he says,
that she was the first who reduced gallantry to an art, and
made a trade of it, that she might not appear more wanton
than other women8. Cadmos was cook to a king of Sidon,
and he ran away with Harmonia, a female flute-playerb.
The work ofEuhemerus was vehemently attacked by all who
retained a veneration for the old religion, and the writer him
self was stigmatised as an atheist0 : but it exerted a great in
fluence over the subsequent historians, as we may perceive
in the case of Diodorus of Sicily. It was translated into Latin
by Ennius, of whose work some fragments remain'1 ; and the
iEneYs of Virgil alone will suffice to show the degree in which
it affected the old Italian mythologye. Finally, the Fathers
* Ennius ap. Lactant., Div. Inst. i. 17. b Athenaeus, xiv. 658.
c See Callimachus, Fr. (Bentl.) 86. Plut. de Is. et Os. 23. Lobeck, 138.
d " Infidelity was introduced by the Calabrian Greek Ennius, and became na
turalised as morals declined."—Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, i. 137.
• See /En. vii. 47-49, 177-182; viii. 355-359.