XLIXj Studies in primitive Greek region. 93 



seem plausible tbat the early Aryans worshipped, not a 

 heaven- or thundergod, but the sun and the moon as their 

 principal and almost- only deities ^) — thus adding to the 

 confusion which cannot fail to arise when mythological spe- 

 culations step into the place of psychological analysis and em- 

 pirical inquiry. 



Trne, we may at once acknowledge what, indeed, seems 

 undeniable. There are certain evidences, linguistic as well 

 as historical, which give us to understand that the heaven 

 and some of its phenomena must have to a certain degree at- 

 tracted the attention of the early Indo-Europeans, Thus the mate- 

 rial bright sky itself, „dyaus", „the whole circle of the heavens", 

 was probably at a very early period looked upon as animated 

 and as the seat of dififerent supernatural beings. When ac- 

 cording to the statement of Herodotus, the Persians offered 

 up sacrifices on the tops of the mountains aud called the 

 whole circle of the heavens Zeus ^) they seem at that time to 

 have still kept up the view held by their primitive Aryan 

 ancestors. Thunder and lightning were probably from ear- 

 liest times believed to proceed from some powerful superhu- 

 man being, the rain and the hail to be sent by demons the 

 residing in. the clouds; similarly the stars may have been, as by 

 most primitive peoples, looked upon as „daemoniacal" beings. 



Such notions were, no doubt, familiar both to the primitive 

 Indo-Europeans and to their primitive descendants in Greece. 

 But granted that the heavenly bodies and phenomena were 

 by the early Greeks vaguely animated in the same way as the 

 phenomena of the earth — what part did these supernatural 

 beings play in their religion? That is to say, how much did they 

 interfere with their practical life? TLunder and lightning are 

 phenomena which cannot fail to inspire uncivilised man with 

 fear and awe; but the}' occur too rarely and too irregularly 

 to become of great importance in primitive worship. The 

 thunder-deity, in fact, has its place' rather in the mythology 

 than in the religion of the lower races. The moon again may 



*) Siecke, Urrdigion der ladogermanen, p. 9, etc. 

 ^) Herod. I, 131. 



