[116] Hesiod, Theogon. 188, 934, 945; Homer, Iliad, v. 371; Odyss. viii. 268.
[117] Homer, Hymn. Vener. 248, 286; Homer, Iliad, v. 320, 386.
[118] A large proportion of the Hesiodic epic related to the exploits and adventures of the heroic women,—the Catalogue of Women and the Eoiai embodied a string of such narratives. Hesiod and Stesichorus explained the conduct of Helen and Klytæmnêstra by the anger of Aphroditê, caused by the neglect of their father Tyndareus to sacrifice to her (Hesiod, Fragm. 59, ed. Düntzer; Stesichor. Fragm. 9, ed. Schneidewin): the irresistible ascendency of Aphroditê is set forth in the Hippolytus of Euripidês not less forcibly than that of Dionysos in the Bacchæ. The character of Daphnis the herdsman, well-known from the first Idyll of Theocritus, and illustrating the destroying force of Aphroditê, appears to have been first introduced into Greek poetry by Stesichorus (see Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, vol. i. pp. 526-529). Compare a striking piece among the Fragmenta Incerta of Sophoklês (Fr. 63, Brunck) and Euripid. Troad. 946, 995, 1048. Even in the Opp. et Di. of Hesiod, Aphroditê is conceived rather as a disturbing and injurious influence (v. 65).
Adonis owes his renown to the Alexandrine poets and their contemporary sovereigns (see Bion’s Idyll and the Adoniazusæ of Theocritus). The favorites of Aphroditê, even as counted up by the diligence of Clemens Alexandrinus, are however very few in number. (Admonitio ad Gent. p. 12, Sylb.)
Athênê, the man-goddess,[119] born from the head of Zeus, without a mother and without feminine sympathies, is the antithesis partly of Aphroditê, partly of the effeminate or womanized god Dionysos—the latter is an importation from Asia, but Athênê is a Greek conception—the type of composed, majestic and unrelenting force. It appears however as if this goddess had been conceived in a different manner in different parts of Greece. For we find ascribed to her, in some of the legends, attributes of industry and home-keeping; she is represented as the companion of Hêphæstos, patronizing handicraft, and expert at the loom and the spindle: the Athenian potters worshipped her along with Promêtheus. Such traits of character do not square with the formidable ægis and the massive and crushing spear which Homer and most of the mythes assign to her. There probably were at first at least two different types of Athênê, and their coalescence has partially obliterated the less marked of the two.[120] Athênê is the constant and watchful protectress of Hêraklês: she is also locally identified with the soil and people of Athens, even in the Iliad: Erechtheus, the Athenian, is born of the earth, but Athênê brings him up, nourishes him, and lodges him in her own temple, where the Athenians annually worship him with sacrifice and solemnities.[121] It was altogether impossible to make Erechtheus son of Athênê,—the type of the goddess forbade it; but the Athenian mythe-creators, though they found this barrier impassable, strove to approach to it as near as they could, and the description which they give of the birth of Erichthonios, at once un-Homeric and unseemly, presents something like the phantom of maternity.[122]