[Sidenote: and therefore variously judged by various minds.]
It is therefore certain that according as critics lay stress on the great consistency of character and feeling in these poems, they will, as Mr. Gladstone does, exaggerate their historical value, and set them down as almost sober history. When the other spirit prevails, and we attend to the many flaws in plot and inconsistencies of detail, we shall have acute scholars, like Mr. Evelyn Abbott, denying that either the assertions or the omissions in the poems are evidence worth anything for any historical purpose. Yet even such sceptics will not refrain from drawing pictures of Greek life from these false and treacherous epics.
[30:1] Cf. his early chapters, especially i. pp. 43 _sq._ Busolt's 2nd edition, now in the press, contains an exhaustive analysis of all the recent discoveries.
[31:1] The main causes of invented legends are: first, the glorification of national heroes; secondly, the desire of chronographers to obtain synchronisms, and make the heroes of one place contemporaneous with, and related to, those of another. In the former case it is generally an older or better known story which is transferred to the new case, with more or less modification; in the latter there may be deliberate fraud, as Holm has argued. Of all old Greek legend the chronology is the most suspicious part, because this has been invented in comparatively late times, and by learned men, not by, but for, the people.
[32:1] A fine specimen is the pedigree of the Ptolemies direct from Dionysus and Heracles, given by the historian Satyrus. Cf. C. Müller, _Fragg. Histor. Graec._, iii. 165. The substance of it is as follows: From Dionysus and Althea was born Dejanira, from her and Heracles, Hyllus, and from him in direct descent Kleodaos, Aristomachas, Temenos, Keisos, Mason, Thestios, Akoos, Aristodamidas, Karanos, Koenos, Turimmas, Perdikkas, Philippos, Aerope, Alketas, Amyntas, Balakros, Meleager, Arsinoe. From her Lagus, Ptolemy Soter, &c., down to Philopator, the then reigning king. Hence, he adds, were derived the names of the _demes_ in the Dionysiac _phyle_ at Alexandria, viz. Dejaniris, Ariadnis, &c.
[35:1] We have not a few instances in Greek polities--Megara, Borysthenes, Calymnos occur to me--where there still existed in late days magisterial +basileis+ and even +monarchoi+. Cf. _Bull. de Corr. hell._ viii. 30; ix. 286.