Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

ch. vin] Daimon and Hero 261
But in the case of the Dithyramb and still more vividly in
the case of the Olympic games we have been all along conscious
of another element as yet not completely analysed, the hero.
The Dithyramb has to do with the fertility-daimon but the,)
drama which sprang out of it sets before us not the iradr], the
sufferings, the life-history of Dionysos, but the iraQr), the life-;
histories of a host of heroes, of Agamemnon, of Orestes, of/
Prometheus, of Herakles, of Hippolytos. Pindar the poet of the
Games salutes no daimon by name. He asks 1
'What god, what hero, or what man shall we sing?'
If then at one stage of their development in both the drama and
the Olympic games the hero-element was dominant, it is all
important that we should ask and answer the question,— 'what
exactly is a hero?'
The question may seem at the first glance superfluous. A
hero is surely simple enough. He is just a dead man revered
in life, honoured with a mild and modified form of divine honours
after death. We have surely done with difficult and dubious con-/
ceptions like ' collective representations.' We have got to facts at
last, simple, historical facts. All now is plain, concrete, a posteriori.
'You must not say that "Minos" represents a dynasty; Minos was a
particular man and Dr Ridgeway can discuss his dates and doings.
You must not say that Menelaos is a tribal hero ; Menelaos was
a well-known infantry officer with auburn whiskers 2 .' Let us
look at facts. It happens that at Athens the record of a
succession of hero-kings is unusually full and complete ; so to
Athens let us turn.
The oldest hero reverenced by Athens was Cecrops. Who ^
was Cecrops ? The old Euhemerism knows many things about
Cecrops. He was the first king of Athens 3 , a native of Egypt,
who led a colony to Athens about 1556 B.C. He was a typical
culture hero, he softened and polished the rude manners of the
inhabitants and, as an earlier Theseus, drew them from their
1
01. II. 2 riva deov, riv ijpwa, riva 5' dvdpa. Ke\a8r)