His
nature-gods became thoroughly anthropomorphic; and he probably
no more remembered that Achilleus originally signified the
sun, than we remember that the word God, which we use to
denote the most vast of conceptions, originally meant simply
the Storm-wind. Indeed, when the fetichistic tendency led the
Greek again to personify the powers of nature, he had recourse
to new names formed from his own language. Thus, beside Apollo
we have Helios; Selene beside Artemis and Persephone; Eos
beside Athene; Gaia beside Demeter. As a further consequence
of this decomposition and new development of the old Aryan
mythology, we find, as might be expected, that the Homeric
poems are not always consistent in their use of their mythic
materials. Thus, Paris, the night-demon, is--to Max Muller's
perplexity--invested with many of the attributes of the
bright solar heroes. "Like Perseus, Oidipous, Romulus, and
Cyrus, he is doomed to bring ruin on his parents; like them he
is exposed in his infancy on the hillside, and rescued by a
shepherd." All the solar heroes begin life in this way.
Whether, like Apollo, born of the dark night (Leto), or like
Oidipous, of the violet dawn (Iokaste), they are alike
destined to bring destruction on their parents, as the night
and the dawn are both destroyed by the sun.
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