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

viii] The Homeric Saga 335
It may have surprised some readers that in our long discussion
of ' heroes ' there has been no mention of Homer, who sings heroic
deeds. The reason is clear. If my contention be right that the cult /
of the collective daimon, the king and the fertility-spirit is primary, ) "
Homer's conception of the hero as the gallant individual, the soldier ^
of fortune or the gentleman of property, is secondary and late.
It has again and again been observed that in Homer we have no
magic and no cult of the dead. Our examination of the Anthesteria
has shown us that, for Greece as for Central Australia, the two were
indissolubly connected. Homer marks a stage when collective!
thinking 1 and magical ritual are, if not dead, at least dying, when/
rationalism, and the individualistic thinking to which it belongs are
developed to a point not far behind that of the days of Perikles.
Homer's attitude towards religion is sceptical, Ionian' 2 .
What is meant by the 'individualism' of Homer is seen
very clearly in the case of the androktasiai or 'man-slaying s.'
Dr Bethe 3 has shown beyond the possibility of a doubt that the
somewhat superabundant androktasiai which appear as single
combats in the Iliad really reflect not the fights of individual I
heroes at Troy, but the conflicts of tribes on the mainland o
Greece. When the tribes who waged this warfare on the main Ian
pass in the long series of Migrations to Asia Minor and the islands,
the local sanctities from which they are cut loose are forgotten,
and local daimones, eponymous heroes and the like become indi-
vidualized Saga-heroes. Achilles and Alexandras are tribal heroes,
that is collective conceptions, of conflicting tribes in Thessaly.
Hector before, not after, he went to Troy was a hero-daimon in
Boeotian Thebes ; his comrade Melanippos had a cult in Thebes,
Patroklos whom he slew was his near neighbour, like him a local I
daimon. It is the life-stories of heroes such as these, cut loose by \
the Migrations from their local cults, freed from their monotonous I
periodicity, that are the material of Attic drama, that form its
free and plastic plots.
1 The connection of collective thinking with magic and of individualism with
the Olympian system will be discussed in the next chapter.
'-' For this whole subject and the contrast of Homer's attitude with that of
iEsckylus see Prof. Murray, Rise of the Greek Epic, Ionia and Attica.
3 Homer und die Heldensage. Die Saije vom Troischen Kriege, in Sitzuugs-
berichte d. k. Pr. Ak. d. Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. KL, 1902. English readers will
find the dvfipoKT&aiai fully discussed on the basis of Dr Bethe's researches in
Prof. Murray's Rise of the Greek Epic, p. 195. Prof. Murray accepts Dr Bethe's
conclusions and adds much to their significance.
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