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Ancient Greek Gods

The Nymphs. - Among these graceless and brutal di­vinities the nymphs were conspicuous for the charm of their youth and beauty. The nymphs of Dionysus’ retinue were in all points similar to their sisters who peopled the rivers and springs. Like the nymphs also found in the retinue of Artemis and Apollo they were tutelary deities of the forests and mountains. Their names varied accord­ing to their place of abode. The Oreads were nymphs of the mountains and the grottoes. The Napaeae, the Aulo­niads, the Hylaeorae and the Alsaeids haunted the woods and valleys. Only the Dryads, forest nymphs responsible for trees, never mingled with divine processions. Crowned with oak-leaves, sometimes armed with an axe to punish outrages against the trees, which they guarded, they would dance around the oaks, which were sacred to them. Certain of their number, the Harnadryads, were still more closely united with trees of which, it was said, they formed an integral part.

Among the nymphs who followed Hera there was an Oread named Echo who, every time that Zeus paid court to some nymph, would distract Hera’s attention with her chattering and singing. When Hera discovered this she deprived Echo of the gift of speech, condemning her to repeat only the last syllable of words spoken in her pres­ence. Now shortly afterwards Echo fell in love with a young Thespian named Narcissus. Unable to declare her love she was spurned by him and went to hide her grief in solitary caverns. She died of a broken heart, her bones turned into stone, and all that was left of her was the echo of her voice. Her unhappy end was also attributed to the wrath of Pan who was unable to win her love and had her torn to pieces by shepherds. Gaea received her mortal remains but even in death she retained her voice.

As for Narcissus, the gods punished him for having spurned Echo by making him fall in love with his own image. The soothsayer Teiresias had predicted that Nar­cissus would live only until the moment he saw himself. One day when he was leaning over the limpid waters of a fountain Narcissus caught sight of. his own reflection in the water. He conceived so lively a passion for this phan­tom that nothing could tear him away from it, and he died there of languor. He was changed into the flower which bears his name and which grows at the edge of springs.

Another victim of the nymphs was the handsome Sici­lian herdsman Daphnis. Daphnis was the son of Hermes and a nymph. He was abandoned by his mother and taken in by shepherds whose daily life he shared at the foot of Etna. He was loved by a nymph, Echenais, Xcnaea or Lyce, who made him swear eternal fidelity to her under pain of going blind. Intoxicated by the princess Chimaera, Daphnis broke his vow and at once lost his sight. He tried to console himself with poetry and music; he was called the inventor of pastoral poetry. He killed himself one day by falling from the top of a cliff.

DIVINITIES CONCERNED WITH THE LIFE OF MAN

Zeus, sovereign lord of mortals, did not rule directly over their fate. He delegated this task to secondary divinities who accompanied men throughout their physical and moral life.

DIVINITIES OF BIRTH AND HEALTH

 Ilithyia. In primitive times there were two Ilithyias, daughters of Hera, who presided over birth and brought to women in labour both pain the keen arrows of the Ilithyias -~ and deliverance. No child could be born un­less they were present, no mother could find relief with­out them. Thus, when Apollo was born, the jealous Hera detained Ilithyia on Olympus for nine days and ninenights when she had been on the point of going to the aid of Leto. Hera repeated this manoeuvre when Alcmene was about to give birth to Hercules.

The two Ilithyias finally merged into a single person, the goddess of childbirth. She was, in fact, a very ancient divinity believed to have originated in Crete. She is most often depicted kneeling, a position which was believed to aid delivery, and carrying a torch, symbol of light, while with her other hand she makes a gesture of encouragement.

Certain goddesses known to be particularly concerned with women were sometimes given the epithet Ilithyia: Hera at Argos, for instance, and Artemis at Delos. It may even be asked if Ilithyia is not simply a double of Hera’s.

Asciepius. ~- We have seen, in discussing Apollo, the tragic circumstances of the birth of Asclepius, son of Apollo and Coronis. Apollo snatched him from the burning pyre on which his mother’s body had just been consumed and carried him to Mount Pelion where he was confided to the care of the Centaur Chiron. Chiron taught him to hunt and instructed him in the science of thedicine. The med­ical career of Asclepius then began. With his miraculous cures he soon earned immense renown. He even suc­ceeded in restoring the dead to life, thanks either to the Gorgon’s blood which Athene had given him or to the properties of a plant which a serpent had told him about. Hades felt that he was being wronged. He went to Zeus to complain, and Zeus agreed that mortals must follow their destiny. Thus Asciepius was guilty of thwarting the order of nature and Zeus struck him dead with a thun­derbolt.

Apollo avenged the death of his son by exterminating the Cyclopes who had forged the thunderbolt. Apollo was banished from Olympus for a considerable time as a result of this massacre.

At Epidaurus another tradition of the birth of Asclepius was current. They said that Coronis gave birth to her son Asclepius while her father, Phiegyas, was on an expedition to the Peloponnese. She exposed the new-born child on Mount Titthion where a goat fed it and a dog guarded it. One day Aresthanas, a shepherd, discovered it and was struck by the supernatural light which played over the child.

Be that as it may, the god of health was always consid­ered to be the offspring of light or fire. To the sick he restored the warmth they had lost. Hence he was the object of great veneration in Greece. He was surrounded by auxiliary divinities: to begin with, Epione, his wife, who bore the two Asclepiads, Podaleirius and Machaon. Both took part, at the head of the Thessalians of Tricca, in the Trojan war. They were as skilled in medicine as their father. Machaon, especially, cured Menelaus of an arrow wound. He also cured Philoctetes. He himself was killed before Troy and Nestor brought his body back to Greece. Podaleirius survived the expedition and on his return was cast by a tempest on to the shores of Caria where he settled.

Asciepius also had daughters: laso, Panacea, Aegle and, above all, Hygieia, who was closely associated with the cult of her father as goddess of health. Finally we must mention the guardian spirit of convalescence, Telespho­rus, who was represented wearing a hooded cape, the costume of those who had just recovered from illness.

Asclepius was sometimes represented as a serpent, but more frequently as a man of middle age with an expres­sion of benevolence, and his cult was ~t the same time a religion and a system of therapeutics. His sanctuaries, such as those at Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos and Pergamus, were built outside the towns on particularly healthy sites. The priests in charge of them at first held a monopoly of medical knowledge which was handed down from father to son. It was only later that they admitted outsiders as neophytes.

In the Asclepeia special rites were observed. After much purificatory preparation, baths, fasting, sacrifices, the

patient was permitted to spend the night in the temple of Asciepius where he slept either on the skin of the sacrificed animal or on a couch placed near the statue of the god. This was the period of incubation. During the night Asclepius would appear to the patient in a dream and give him advice. In the morning the priests would interpret the dream and explain the god’s precepts. Patients would thank Asclepius by tossing gold into the sacred fountain and by hanging ex-votos on the walls of the temple.

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