XLIXJ Studies in primitive Greek religion. 97 



But both accounts refer to peoples already standing afc some- 

 what higher stages of culture and have no bearing on primi- 

 tive Aryan religion. Moreover, with all due respect to Caesar's 

 genius, it is difficult to believe that in liis short summary he 

 does justice to the real number and quality of the German 

 gods. The numerous earth deities to whicli probably far grea- 

 ter attention was paid have been left out of account by him. 

 We can perhaps realise why this was so. Caesar as well as 

 other ancient observers of the religions ceremonies among Indo- 

 European peoples may to a certain degree have been mis- 

 lead by the fact that the worship of the heavenly bodies 

 where it is practised is always more conspicuous than that of 

 other divine powers. Since the heavenly deities are powers 

 of light and are as a rule addressed as friendly beings the 

 savage is not so anxious to conceal their rites as those per- 

 formed to the chtonic and hypochtonic gods. The latter, be- 

 ing powers of the darkness, are naturally to be propitiated in 

 secrecy; to reveal their rites to strangers may even in many 

 cases render them wholly invalid. Moreover, however natural 

 and „human" it is for savage man to address supernatural 

 beings from whom he apprehends some danger, tr^äng to ap- 

 pease their anger and to gain their favour, yet he feels asha- 

 med to do this publicly and is for that reason most particu- 

 lar to conceal it. The ancient Aryan and the ancient Greek, 

 when asked which were his gods, may very well have pointed 

 to the bright sky and its deified phenomena although in fact 

 he paid the main tribute af his worship to deities of an enti- 

 rely different character. 



That the Olympian gods were of låter appearance in 

 Greek religions pantheon is a fact that the Greeks themselves 

 seem to have realised. The heaven and its phenomena were 

 derived from and looked upon as being of secondary import- 

 ance as compared with those of the earth. The heavenly 

 bodies, the sun, the moon, the stars, according to a view ex- 

 pressed by philosophers and poets, bad their origin in the 

 „mother earth" and were nourished by her^). Accordingly 



*) Cf. Xeno ap. Diog. Laert. VII, c. 145: TQéq^ea&ai de rå tfinvga 

 tavxa xat ra åXXa åajQa, tbv fikv rjXiov ex rfis fieyåXr^g &aÅåTT)]g . . . t^v 

 ök oeXi}vi]v. £X norificov vöärcov . . . xä be cAAa å^ö tt/j yfis. Parmenides ap. 



7 



