DOI chapter:
Preface
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61302#0015
PREFACE
iii
a dogma, instead of the most vital and pliable of human
growths.
Third, I have tried everywhere to get at, where possible,
the cult as the explanation of the legend. My belief is that
in many, even in the large majority of cases ritual practice
misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. I hope to
have given salient instances of this in the myths of Erich-
thonios, of Aletis, and of Kephalos. Some of the loveliest
stories the Greeks have left us will be seen to have taken their
rise, not in poetic imagination, but in primitive, often savage,
and, I think, always practical ritual. In this matter—in
regarding the myth-making Greek as a practical savage rather
than a poet or philosopher—I follow, quam longo intervallo,
in the steps of Eusebius, Lobeck, Mannhardt, and Mr. Andrew
Lang. The nomina numina method I have utterly discarded
—first, because I am no philologist; and second, because,
whatever partial success may await it in the future, a method
so long over-driven may well lie by for a time. That I
have been unable, except for occasional illustration, to apply
to my examination of cults the comparative method is matter
of deep regret to me, and is due to lack of time, not lack of
conviction. I may perhaps be allowed to ask that my present
attempts be only taken as prolegomena to a more systematic
study.
I have attempted the examination of Athenian local cults
only. It may surprise some that in an essay on such a subject
no place is given to Athene. The reason is simply this-
Athene was not the object of a merely local cult, as Cecrops
was. She reigned at Athens as one of the orthodox Olympian
hierarchy—nay, more, there is constant and abundant evidence
of her forcible propagandist entrance, of her suppression of
Poseidon, her affiliation of Erechtheus. Any examination of
Athene’s mythology would include the Homeric system, and
be of far wider scope than the analysis of a local cult. Athene
iii
a dogma, instead of the most vital and pliable of human
growths.
Third, I have tried everywhere to get at, where possible,
the cult as the explanation of the legend. My belief is that
in many, even in the large majority of cases ritual practice
misunderstood explains the elaboration of myth. I hope to
have given salient instances of this in the myths of Erich-
thonios, of Aletis, and of Kephalos. Some of the loveliest
stories the Greeks have left us will be seen to have taken their
rise, not in poetic imagination, but in primitive, often savage,
and, I think, always practical ritual. In this matter—in
regarding the myth-making Greek as a practical savage rather
than a poet or philosopher—I follow, quam longo intervallo,
in the steps of Eusebius, Lobeck, Mannhardt, and Mr. Andrew
Lang. The nomina numina method I have utterly discarded
—first, because I am no philologist; and second, because,
whatever partial success may await it in the future, a method
so long over-driven may well lie by for a time. That I
have been unable, except for occasional illustration, to apply
to my examination of cults the comparative method is matter
of deep regret to me, and is due to lack of time, not lack of
conviction. I may perhaps be allowed to ask that my present
attempts be only taken as prolegomena to a more systematic
study.
I have attempted the examination of Athenian local cults
only. It may surprise some that in an essay on such a subject
no place is given to Athene. The reason is simply this-
Athene was not the object of a merely local cult, as Cecrops
was. She reigned at Athens as one of the orthodox Olympian
hierarchy—nay, more, there is constant and abundant evidence
of her forcible propagandist entrance, of her suppression of
Poseidon, her affiliation of Erechtheus. Any examination of
Athene’s mythology would include the Homeric system, and
be of far wider scope than the analysis of a local cult. Athene