88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Greeks," 37 finding them utterly ridiculous. The new era of travel and 

 research had brought to light many an evidence that things were not 

 what they seemed, at least that much which passed for true and un- 

 questionable among the Greeks was differently conceived or otherwise 

 done in other lands. 38 The age of the Sophists merely made common 

 property what had for a hundred years exercised the wits of the great 

 leaders of the new thought. 



We have seen that Greek religion in the Homeric age harbored two 

 conceptions which contained the promise of disintegration, though they 

 still dwelt peacefully side by side. According to the one conception 

 every event was equally divine and so equally " natural," occasioning 

 no surprise ; according to the other, certain provinces of the world, 

 physical and intellectual, were apportioned to the " wide-ruling gods " 

 of Olympus. The former tended to dull the faculty of curiosity, the 

 latter to stimulate it. For, in a sense, the Olympians were personified 

 laws of Nature. With the increasing organization of experience came 

 greater emphasis upon the " Gotterstaat " and overlordship of Zeus, who 

 assumed more and more the title of #eo? par excellence and subordinated 

 the lesser gods to himself, reducing them in the end to expressions of 

 his sovereign pleasure. But back of Zeus, even in Homer, lurks the 

 mysterious power of Motpa, before whose might even the "pleasure" 

 of Zeus avails little. As Zeus subdues the lesser gods, so Fate or Law 

 subdues Zeus to her inexorable will. But the bright patterns woven 

 into Greek mythology, based as they were upon personal caprice and 



37 Bernays, Abh. der Berl. Akad., 18S2, p. 70, refers to Anaxagoras (fr. 17 Diels : 

 t6 5£ ylveadat. ko.1 diroWvaOai otf/c opdCis vofii^ovaiv ol "EWr/ves), to Heeataeus (fr. 332), 

 Philodemns (II. etue/3eias p. 84, Gomp. : otroi/s (paalv ol IIa.vt\\r)ves deovs) and adds : 

 "Es ist die vornelnne Art tier Philosopher) von dem Volk zu reden." Compare also 

 Empedocles, fr. 8 and 9 (Diels). The feeling is deeper than mere pride : it marks the 

 exaltation of the philosophical \6yos, as the statement of <pvcns, over the popular 

 \6yos which stands for v6/j.os and /j.06os. Bury, Ancient Greek Historians, p. 51, n. 2, 

 remarks that when Herodotus quotes and criticises ol "EXX^es he is contrasting the 

 Greek tradition with that of Phoenicians, Persians, or Egyptians, and "is really 

 quoting criticisms of Heeataeus on ol "EXX-^es, that is, on the current mythology of 

 epic tradition." 



38 It would be foolish to claim for any one cause the determining influence in 

 giving direction and scope to the nascent rationalism of the sixth century. Travel 

 and research could furnish the content and supply the materials for reflective thought ; 

 but both presuppose the divine curiosity which is the parent of philosophy. Many 

 influences conspired to produce the revolution in thought ; but travel may well have 

 contributed most to convert curiosity into astonishment. The curious collections of 

 strange and shocking customs, of which we find echoes in Herodotus, Hippocrates, 

 the AtaX^eis, etc., clearly originated in the sixth century, and supplied the arsenal of 

 the militant Sophists. 



