The Title of the Edition of 1810

Preface

Thev purpose of this book is twofold, as is its occasion. On the one hand, the lectures on mythology that I have been accustomed to give for several years made an outline, with the proper supporting references, necessary. On the other hand, several persons who had not attended those lectures wished to have a handbook following the plan I had drawn up. Whether I have succeeded in uniting both aims, or whether they can be united at all, success and the voice of the vi experts will decide. In any case, the plan and arrangement must be judged accordingly. Equal fullness in every part would, given the richness of the subject, have required a whole series of volumes. Much therefore had to remain mere sketch.

Here, however, citations and proof-texts were especially necessary. These are precisely what interrupt oral delivery most disagreeably, and what are most easily taken down wrongly in writing. The time this printed text saves me in that respect I mean to use in future lectures for closer discussion of the main points, and for fuller treatment of what could so far only be touched on.

I also cited the proof-texts throughout from a further conviction. First, because I believe that this pointing to the sources belongs to fidelity in teaching. Second, because I wished thereby to distance myself from those who always want to give the appearance of drawing everything a priori out of themselves. How easily the citations vii could have been heaped up, anyone can see. Those given will show the knowledgeable reader that they come from connected study of the principal authors, and not from indexes. The engravings and outlines added to the book likewise aim solely at instruction. They neither can nor should serve as mere ornament. For this reason, and to save space, I have chosen illustrations of gems and coins wherever it was at all practicable. My particular reasons for this choice are touched on in the book itself.

The general part, which considers the inner laws by which symbolic and mythic expression is formed, had to be proportionally longer. From it must come the principles for judging particular symbols and myths, as well as many phenomena of ancient art, and precisely here so much still lies in darkness. In this part too I have taken Greek antiquity as my starting point. I did so not only viii because Greek worship forms the centre of these investigations, but also from the conviction that, thanks to the relative completeness of its literature, the Greek nation is where we can most surely show, in general terms, the passage from one period of culture into another.

As to the principles by which ancient mythology is treated here: with each circle of myths I have, so far as brevity allowed, set the most important ways of conceiving it side by side, as what follows will show still more clearly. Where I myself incline has never been left undecided, whether in general or on particular doctrines. With that I might simply refer readers to the book itself. But just now, in this conflict of opinions, an open declaration may best befit the character of a teacher and author, so that everyone may know in advance what to expect of me as a mythologist. I will therefore briefly set out the principles from which I have proceeded.

ix How one judges and treats the religious theories of antiquity cannot be separated from one’s own thinking about the worth of religions in general. As for mine: that religion is to me the best which preserves the ethical character most purely and holds the strictest moral measure before the peoples. I do not believe, however, that morality exhausts the whole content of religions. I know, too, that the noblest men and the most remarkable peoples of ancient and modern times have sought and found something further in them: higher disclosures about the mystery of our existence and our destiny.

In every respect, therefore, I attribute to Christianity a high value, indeed the highest among all known religions. The religious culture of the Greeks, in so far as it rested on the Mysteries, I regard as fairly homogeneous with Christianity; in its public cult, as a necessary preliminary stage to it. Holding this conviction, I consider thoroughly false and uncritical the procedure of those who, faced with the most significant religious doctrines x and philosophemes in Greek and Roman mythology, either try to strip them of their most important content by their interpretation, or deliberately put them in shadow and cast suspicion in every way on the witnesses to them.

As to the sources of Greek mythology in particular, the great value of the classical poets, and especially of the oldest, is not to be mistaken. But Homer (though this cannot, of course, be proved here) deliberately took no notice of many an ancient cult of his nation. The standard must therefore become quite wrong if the Homeric poems are made to decide what was or was not ancient Greek belief. Due attention to the Hesiodic poems, to the Homeric Hymns, to Pindar, and indeed to the Homeric poems themselves, leaves the knowledgeable reader no longer in doubt: in many of its branches, Greek religion had far more significance than the poets, paying homage to the beautiful, could use for their purposes. xi Pausanias confirms this proposition with every chapter of his description of ancient images and worship of the gods.

All the more important, then, become the ancient historians and the fragments of the lost ones. This class of writers reports everything that struck their inquiring eye as noteworthy, and had no considerations to weigh of the kind that fettered the poet. Equally deserving of attention are the philosophers. This holds not only for the works and fragments of the older ones, but also for those who, after the spread of Christianity, were enabled by the richer resources of literature to bring to light many a remarkable and forgotten fact of earlier religion. It cannot be denied that they earnestly set out to do this, and this is especially true of the Neoplatonists. Love of their school and polemical aims not infrequently influenced their judgment. Even so, their reports often xii alone put us in a position to find the key to an ancient belief or myth, especially when, as frequently happens, they cite a sound witness from outside their school.

Ignoring important resources, among which I also count the works of ancient art, leads to one-sidedness. In the same way, isolating Greek mythology too strictly must inevitably narrow the view. I have remarked repeatedly in the book itself that in Greek temple worship every foreign usage was at once essentially transformed, and the continuation will show this still more clearly. But that is no reason to cut the Greek myths off from the roots that run on into other lands. The oldest and most credible writers have much to tell of foreign influences. Indeed, there is only one voice on the matter: the religion of the Greeks came in, for the most part, from abroad.

And the most recent investigations, which Heeren has conducted so happily into the commerce of the ancient peoples,^b what results do they yield? Did those nations of the primeval world bring one another only elephants’ tusks, gold, and slaves? Did they not also bring xiii knowledge, religious customs, and gods? Herder found it of little use, in explaining ancient monuments, “to consider the peoples among whom they were erected in separation, as it were so isolated as if there had been no others on earth.” I can find this method of explaining ancient mythology of just as little use.

This by no means opens the gates to roving caprice. The ancient Greek myth is for us a historical fact. As such, it is to be determined and brought out by way of historical research: through grammatical interpretation, from the roots of the Greek language and from its usage, in a word from written and pictorial monuments, so far as they rest on Greek soil. Nor should one go seeking abroad for what can be found here as native and explained satisfactorily. But neither should one shut one’s eyes when credible Greek guides themselves point to a foreign homeland xiv and a foreign origin for a doctrine.

I count it as such self-blinding when, for example, the unanimous testimony of ancient ethnic history, that a principal branch of Greek religion was transplanted from Upper Asia into Europe, is declared at once to be a blind delusion, together with the agreement of all the other witnesses, out of partiality for a single writer who is silent on the matter. Against errors of this kind the diligence of learned research is already protection enough. Against others, only that higher sense protects us which knows how to grasp the mind of antiquity in its noblest expressions, and to understand and interpret the religious life of peoples.

The present handbook has been worked out according to these principles. Should they be called mystical, I hereby publicly profess this mysticism. My investigations into the Bacchic circle of myths^c were designed and in part carried out in exactly the same way. These have xv enjoyed the public approval of several acknowledged masters. The earnest purpose and content of my mythological lectures have also met with earnestness in my hearers, and this shared seriousness has helped my teaching not a little.

With such encouraging memories, I feel not the slightest call to take up again now what I dropped the moment it came to my knowledge. Nor will I cloud the clarity of my mind by troubling to trace the obscure motives of an anonymous censure. It is more rewarding to listen to the instructive judgment of experts, and to honour the trust of young men who, knowing nothing of ulterior motives, give unprejudiced and strenuous thought to so important a subject.

To investigate the connection and spirit of ancient belief, poetry, and image-making, and to show in the works of antiquity the religious centre in which they are united: this I hold to be a principal aim of my teaching office and of my other scholarly endeavours. xvi With it is connected my plan for editions of Herodotus, of Plotinus, and of Cicero’s books De Natura Deorum, for which I have again recently received most obliging support from Italy and Holland. For the continuation of the Dionysus most of the material is likewise prepared. First, however, I shall complete this handbook with the second part, which is to follow directly.

Heidelberg, 20 April 1810.

The Author.