On the Theogony. 81 



Ek 5' i^r\ ai8oh) kq\>) Beoi; Afitpi de iroir} 

 no(7(T(j/ irn-6 paSivoiaiv dk^tro. * • 



• * » # * 



T{/ 5' Epoc di/idprrice, (cai Ifiepog ttrTrtro /caXoe 

 reivonti'y TO. TTpojra, ^iuiv r' If 0vXof iovay. 

 TaiiTi}v d f§ apxjje Tifirjv ?x"' ''^^ XeXo-y^* 

 MoTpav ai'6pu>iT0i(n kuI dOavaTOKXi Beoiiri 

 TlapOtviovg r oapovg, ^tidripard fitiKi-jfiriv re. 



Forth sprang the goddess, lovely as divine. 

 While round her gently-gliding footsteps swell'd 

 The light sea foam, as Love and fair Desire 

 Attend her progress to the heavenly choir. 

 Such honour on her waited from her birth ; 

 And this her portion among gods and men. 

 The youthful converse, and the smiling glance. 

 And all the wiles of love and soft delight. 

 The fond caress, and honey'd blandishments. 



The poet has thus far been occupied by his account of tlie Titan de- 

 scendants of father Heaven and mother Earth, It may perhaps appear 

 singular to us, tliat we find scarcely any of these retained among tlie prin- 

 cipal gods, whose service is familiar to us from the classical writings j for 

 from the peculiar circumstances of her birth, we can hardly reckon Venus 

 among the number; and even Kronus, or Saturn, although well reraem-" 

 bared as an object of mytliological history, seems scarcely to have been 

 honoured in Greece by any popular worship,* and does not stand in the 



quae ex coeli conversione colligitur : inde ab ipso natus putatur, Kpovog. Ciimque 

 scmina rerum omnium post coelum gignendarum de coelo fluerent : ubi raundus om- 

 nibus suis partibus perfectus est, certo jam tempore finis factus est procedendi de 

 caelo semina ; ad aiternum vero aniraalium propagationem in Venerem generandi 

 facultas deinccps translata est. 



We have before stated that the same fable of the mutilation of Heaven by Time 

 is recorded by Philo Byblius to have formed a jjart of the Phoenician mythology. We 

 do not remember any allusion to it in Homer, although he once or twice speaks of 

 Kronus, with lapetus and the other Titans, as expelled to Tartarus ; but this is rather 

 connected with the war of the Titans against Jupiter, which we shall hereafter have 

 to consider. The Aphrodite of Homer is described as the daughter of Jupiter and 

 Diana, and ApoUodorus concurs in this genealogy. The epithet <l>i\onii8iig (although 

 accommodated by Hesiod, by the change of a single letter, to his own legend of her 

 birth, J obviously throughout the Homeric poems simply signifies a lover of smiles. 

 Wolf, however, considers the line in Hesiod, although referred to by Kustathius as 

 an interpolation. This mythus of the birth of Venus is, as far as we remember 

 peculiar to Hesiod. 



• In all the Pha;nician settlements, however, as at Carthage, he appears to have 

 been retained as the principal god, and worshipped with human sacrifices. The 

 Grecian system, which exalted Jupiter to the throne of Olympus, and was of an un- 

 l)loody and mild character, seems to have superseded, at a later period, this barbarous 

 form of early superstition. As the dethronement of Saturn by Jupiter, does not seem 

 to involve any physical allegory, we may perhaps conjecture that it is merely a my- 

 thical mode of relating the manner in which an older form of idolatry was forced to 



