There are flaws in the usual methods of research into religious origins which have become apparent to the writer during several years' work on the cult of one Greek god. It has therefore seemed desirable to restate and to examine these methods so as to demonstrate the merits and the faults of each. To do so is one aim of this paper; another is an elucidation of the many important advantages of the historical approach, and, although it is hoped that the principles herein erected as guides to study are applicable to all ancient gods, the illustrations of these principles will derive very largely from Hermes, the god with whose cult and concept the writer has been most closely concerned.

It would be hard to exaggerate the difficulties which beset a student when he turns to the problem of an ancient god's origin. Even a partial solution demands his utmost caution, for the easy explanation is hardly ever the right one. He must guard himself against the beguilements of the attractive theory which will very often beckon him down the wrong path. To avoid this and to enter upon his task most wisely he will meditate upon two main initial difficulties.

The first one to present itself is, of course, the fact that the origin of most gods worshipped by the Greeks lies in the past far behind Homer. Therefore the student is faced with an almost total lack of literary and epigraphical material—at least which he can understand— to aid him in the search.

This has always been one of my favourite poems, but if I were asked why, I should be hard put to it for an answer. I suppose it is because it seems to me the most perfect example of urbanitas in Latin poetry. Others will prefer Horace—those who prefer curiosa felicitas, and I admit at once there is nothing here to match such an exquisite felicity as ‘tange Chloen semel arrogantem’ (o si sic omnia!). But even in Horace such apparently effortless grace is rare; usually we find as much curiositas as felicitas: we marvel at the art, but I for one feel uneasily conscious of the tour de force. In other words, I feel the effects are calculated, whereas I always feel that Catullus dashed down his shorter poems, at least, in a few minutes—as we know Schubert did many of his songs: even Mozart composed in his head, though without the necessity of writing. Of the labor limae the outstanding examples are Horace and Beethoven. For Horace we have his own word: in the case of Beethoven no one would suspect to what an extent he carried it, if his note-books had not been preserved.

However de gustibus non disputandum: it is the old controversy between Munro, who favoured Catullus and Lucretius, and Conington, who preferred Horace and Virgil. (Those who have access to Conington's Miscellaneous Writings will find there a most interesting statement of his views: Munro's reply will be found in Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus.)

The outstanding feature of epic as displayed in the Odyssey is simplicity. It is the tale of the hero who has to pass many dangers on sea and land, outwit giants and other monsters, and accomplish in general a number of feats of courage and ingenuity before he reaches the final goal from which his purpose, so far as it is serious, has never swerved, and is welcomed by his dear wife at his own fireside. In all this he has working with and for him a goddess who has chosen him for her especial favourite. As Jason had the help of Hera, and Aeneas of his mother, so Odysseus was able to defeat all perils by joining to his own wits the divine powers of Athena. The assistance she gave him lay in such devices as hiding him in a cloud, or going before him in human form to ensure him a friendly reception, for help of this sort suited the problems he had to face. We are, that is to say, in a genuine fairy-tale world, not one indeed where human personalities are submerged, but where motives are simplified, where our chief joy is to see the hero first mocked, then outwitting or outdoing his mockers, where, to put the point briefly, there is no moral and no one but a fool would spoil a good story by looking for one.

It is otherwise with tragedy, and expecially with the tragedy of Sophocles. Human motives and their justification, the moral relations between gods and mortals, provide questions that have demanded, not perhaps to be answered, but at any rate to be probed and brought forcibly before the notice of men.

Most students, when their last examination is over, are glad enough to sell their text-books and bid a long farewell to all subjects that lie outside their daily occupations. Not only Classics but History, Music, Mathematics, and even French are cheerfully ‘dropped’—a course that many will regret in after years. Up to the twentieth century Latin was not a dead or an alien tongue: it was part of an educated man's native language. But the overcrowded time-table, the ‘new’ pronunciation, and the so-called diffusion of culture have made a cleavage between young and old. Our Ciceronian accent sounds pedantic at home and is not understood by foreigners; so we no longer quote Latin, but join in the common hunt for second-hand American slang.

But is not this a foolish betrayal of the very citadel of sound learning and enlightenment? Who are the bearers of culture if not the young graduates from our Arts Departments? How can the tide of barbarism be stemmed if the leaders of thought are ashamed of their own know-ledge and literary taste? I do not mean that the art of classical quotation can be revived. But for our own pleasure, as well as for the ripening of our attainments, should we not make a little effort to keep up our Latin? Let me suggest one or two simple ways of doing this.

1. If you have an odd half-hour in a library, pick out an edition of any Latin author not too familiar. Read the introduction until you find out who he was and when he lived.

‘Crete, for religion, as for civilization generally, was the stepping-stone from Egypt to Greece.’ This statement of Miss Jane Harrison is far from being the belief of the orthodox classical scholar, and it is not the aim of this paper to claim its truth except in relation to one aspect of religion.

The Haghia Triada sarcophagus shows that the Minoans were probably familiar with the Egyptian conception of the Isles of the Blest, and that this figured in their cult of the dead in the model of a ship which is being carried to the dead man, to facilitate his journey to that blessed region. It seems that it was this conception that survived in Greek religion.

Pindar in his Second Olympian Ode (lines 76–84) describes such a region. Virtue, he says, brings its reward, and the good are allowed after death to live a life free from toil of any kind, in the company of the Gods. But a still greater reward awaits those who have undergone the threefold probation without taint of evil. ‘Whosoever have dared in either world to live three times a life pure from all evil, pass on the road of Zeus by the tower of Cronus, where the breezes of Ocean breathe around the Islands of the Blest, and flowers are radiant with gold, some on the shore from the shining trees, while the water fosters others. With wreaths of these and with crowns they entwine their hands, living the while by the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthus.’

In Westminster Abbey lie the bones of Ben Jonson; in the little parish church of Cookham in Berkshire lies a local squire named Arthur Babham, who died and was buried at about the same time as the poet. The world knows Ben Jonson, and his epitaph. Who has heard of his contemporary? Yet listen to the first lines of the Cookham memorial:

To Cristall Skyes let Fame resounde the Vertuous Praise aright Of Arthor Babham here depicte in alabastere bright.

Ten further lines record his lineage, his offspring, the expense of his monument, and his ultimate happy destination; but to the reader they mean little, compared with the directness of the words on the Abbey flagstone: ‘O rare Ben Ihonson.’

There is a similar simplicity and lack of pretension in certain of the sepulchral epigrams on individuals contained in Book VII of the Greek Anthology, which marks them out among the multitude of ‘poetical exercises in the form of epitaphs’ (to quote the introduction of the Loeb edition) which form the greater part of the collection. Some of these outstanding examples are attributed, though often on very slender evidence, to famous poets from the seventh to the fifth centuries, while others are anonymous (); but, contrasted with the mass of rhetorical questions, imaginative speculations, and elaborate descriptions which so often detract from the compositions of the later writers, the epitaphs in question all have this common virtue, that the bare facts to be commemorated are stated briefly and lucidly, some-times with the transcendent clarity of great poetry, sometimes with a halting plainness which has equal power to transfix the mind.

The majority of the photographs that follow are of monuments in Byzantium and Asia Minor. Unfortunately extant buildings are nearly all of the Roman Imperial period, when the Asiatic cities were largely rebuilt. The fortification walls, however, are mostly Hellenistic. Monuments—even city-walls—earlier than Alexander are rare in Ionia. The terms of the Peace of Callias in 449–8 are obscure, but it seems almost certain that demilitarization of coastal cities was among them. Thuc. (iii. 33) speaks of Ionia in general as άτɛíχoτoς in 427 and applies the same epithet to other cities on the coast (Clazomenae, Lampsacus, Cyzicus). Under the Diadochi these cities rebuilt their defences, and the walls now extant, all down the coast as far as Caunus, are nearly all Hellenistic. The extant ruins of Byzantium are later still. Apart from the Obelisk of Theodosius, stolen from Egypt, and the Serpent Column, stolen from Delphi, the thirdcentury Gothic column is the earliest considerable monument now standing. The Turkish occupation played havoc in the past with the antiquities: not that wanton vandalism was practised, but they were strangely indifferent. Now, however, Turkish archaeologists are playing a distinguished part in the excavations and their journal Belleten cannot be disregarded by European workers.