Heathen mythology Part 45

Fame, to thy breaking heart, No comfort could impart, In vain thy brow the laurel wreath was wearing; One grief and one alone Could bow thy bright head down, --Thou wert a woman, and wert left despairing!"

MRS. NORTON.

NUMA POMPILIUS.

This hero was born on the very day that Romulus laid the foundation of the Roman city: he married Tatia, the daughter of the Sabine king, whom however he had the misfortune to lose; owing to which, he retired into the country that he might devote his time more uninterruptedly to study.

When, upon the death of Romulus, he was chosen by the senators to be their sovereign, it was with great difficulty that he could be persuaded to undertake the onerous task, which, however, he filled to the satisfaction of his subjects, dismissing the body guards who usually attended upon the Roman Emperor, thus showing he had no distrust of his subjects.

His great object was to quell the spirit of war and conquest which he found in the people, and to inculcate the love of peace, with a reverence for the deity, whose wors.h.i.+p by images he forbade, and established a priesthood for it, the effect of which was to prevent any graven images or statues from appearing in their sanctuaries for upwards of one hundred and thirty years.

This wise monarch, aware that superst.i.tion is one of the greatest engines in governing a people, encouraged a report that he regularly visited the nymph Egeria, who indeed, according to Ovid, became his wife. {263}

In her name he introduced all his laws and regulations into the state, and solemly declared in the presence of his people, that they were sanctified by the approval of that being, an approval, which gave them additional favour in the eyes of this superst.i.tious people.

At his death, which took place after a reign of forty-three years, not only the Romans, but the neighbouring nations were anxious to pay their testimony of reverence to a monarch, whom they could not help respecting no less for his abilities, than for his moderation in the application of them.

He forbade the Romans to burn his body, after their usual custom, but ordered them to bury it near Mount Jerusalem, with some of the books which he had written, which being accidentally found four hundred years after his death, were burned by order of the senate.

They are stated merely to have contained the reasons why he had made the innovations into the ceremonies of their religion.

"Egeria! sweet creation of some heart, Which found no mortal resting place so fair As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art Or wert,--a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair; Or it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring; whatso'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth

Here did'st thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?

This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamoured G.o.ddess, and the cell Haunted by holy love--the earliest oracle!

And did'st thou not, thy breast to his replying, Blend a celestial with a human heart; And love, which dies as it was born, in sighing, Share with immortal transports? could thine art Make them indeed immortal, and impart The purity of heaven to earthly joys, Expel the venom and not blunt the dart-- The dull satiety which all destroys-- And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?"

BYRON.

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CADMUS.

Cadmus was the son of Agenor, and brother of Europa, who was carried away by Jupiter in the likeness of a bull; this prince being ordered by his father never to return if he was unable to find and bring back his sister; he at last consulted the oracle of Delphos, to obtain its a.s.sistance in accomplis.h.i.+ng his mission.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Look no longer for thy sister," replied Apollo, "but follow the first cow which presents itself to thy sight, and wherever that shall stop, build a city for thee and thy successors." Cadmus obeyed and was guided in this manner towards Boeotia, which he founded.

Previous to this, wis.h.i.+ng to thank the G.o.ds by a sacrifice, he sent his companions to fetch some water from a neighbouring grove; becoming alarmed at their delay, he went in search of them, and found they had desecrated a fountain sacred to Mars, and that the dragon which presided over it had slain them. He arrived but just in time to witness him finis.h.i.+ng the meal, which had followed their destruction.

In fierce despair Cadmus attacked, and by the aid of Minerva overcame the monster, he then sowed the teeth of the dragon in the plain, upon which armed men rose suddenly from the ground.

In his alarm he threw a stone at them, and they instantly attacked one another, leaving only five, who a.s.sisted him in building the city.

He soon after married Hermione, the daughter of Venus; and had by her four sons and four daughters, whom Juno, out of hatred to Venus, cruelly persecuted. {265}

Cadmus was the first who introduced the use of letters into Greece, though others maintain that the alphabet brought by him from Phoenicia, was only different from that used by the ancient inhabitants of Greece.

It was composed of seventeen letters, and to these were added some time after, by Palamedes, an additional four, and by Simonides of Melos, also, the same number.

In addition to the alphabet, by which the name of Cadmus has become renowned, he introduced likewise, the wors.h.i.+p of many of the Egyptian and Phoenician deities, to the inhabitants of Greece, into which country, he is believed to have come about one thousand four hundred and ninety years before the christian era.

In stories so remote, it is difficult to separate the true from the false, and still more so to give a plausible explanation of apparent incongruities: it has, however, been suggested, that the dragon's fable, arose from some country which Cadmus conquered; that the armed men who are stated to have arisen from the field, were men armed with bra.s.s, a crop very likely to arise from the attempted subjection of a free country.

We have now related the most celebrated fables in the Mythology of the Greeks and Romans, without a.s.serting that we have given all of them, some of which would be out of keeping in a work meant to be placed in the hands of youth, while others are not sufficiently authenticated, or do not bear sufficient interest, to induce us to present them to our readers.

[Ill.u.s.tration] {266}

BELLEROPHON

was son of Glaucus, King of Corinth, and named at first Hipponous. The murder of Beller, his brother, by him, procured his second name of Bellerophon or the murderer of Beller; after he had committed which, he fled to the court of Proetus, King of Argos, where being of a n.o.ble and fine person, he won the affections of the wife of the king; he refused to listen to her pa.s.sion, and in revenge he was accused by her to her husband, of attempting her virtue.

Proetus, was very unwilling to trespa.s.s upon the laws of hospitality by punis.h.i.+ng him, but sent him with a letter to Jobates the father of his queen, entreating him to put to death the man who would have insulted the honour of his daughter.

Jobates to satisfy his son-in-law, sent Beller to attack a monster called Chimaera, in the full expectation that he would be destroyed. By the a.s.sistance of Minerva, however, who lent him Pegasus the winged horse, he succeeded in conquering the monster, and returned victorious to the court of Jobates.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

After this he was sent on various expeditions of great danger, in all of which he was so successful, that Jobates imagined he was {267} under the protection of the G.o.ds, and gave him the hand of his daughter Ca.s.sandra in marriage, naming him as his successor to the throne.

It has been a.s.serted by some that he attempted to fly to Olympus upon Pegasus, but that Jupiter sent an insect which stung the horse, who threw his rider headlong to the earth; and that for many years he remained melancholy, languis.h.i.+ng, and full of pain and weakness.

MILO

was one of the most celebrated of the Greek wrestlers, who having early accustomed himself to carry great burthens, became so strong, that nothing seemed too much for his vast efforts. It is recorded of him that he carried on his shoulders a young bullock, four years old, for more than forty yards, that he then killed it with a blow of his fist, and to crown the feat, afterwards eat it up.

This man was one of the disciples of Pythagoras, whose life he had saved, by supporting the whole weight of the building on his shoulders, when the roof of the school in which he was teaching gave way.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

In his old age a melancholy fate awaited him; for failing in an attempt to pull up a tree by the roots, his hands remained fast pinched in the tree, when a lion suddenly sprang upon him, which he was unable to escape, and fell beneath the fury of the beast.

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THE PRINc.i.p.aL DIVINITIES OF INDIAN MYTHOLOGY.