The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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Homer, of Greek nationality although bom in Asia, profited by these advantages. He set sail in a vessel, whose patron, Mentes of Leucas, was his friend, wandered over all the possessions of Greece, visited Egypt, ^ and came to settle at Tyre. This was the ancient metropolis of Greece, the source and sacred repository of her mythological traditions. It was there, in this same temple of the Master of the Universe,* where twelve centuries before Sanchoniathon had come to study the antiquities of the world, " that Homer was able to go back to the origin of Greek cult and fathom the most hidden meanings of its mysteries *; it was there that he chose the first and noblest subject of his chants, that which constitutes the fable of the Iliad.^ If one must
' Fausanias, passim.
"Strab., 1. xiv.; Polyb., 1. v.; Aulu-Gell., 1. vii., c. 3; Meurs., In Rhod., 1. i., c. 18 et 21; Hist. univ. des Anglais, in-S", t. ii., p. 493.
' Diod. Sicul., 1. i., 2.
* In Phcenician yi«-iSo (Melich-<Brtz), in Greek MsXtWpriji: a name given to the Divinity whom the Thracians called Hercules, the Lord of the Universe: from "nn or Tltr (harr or shar), excellence, dominance, sovereignty; and ^3 (col.), All. Notice that the Teutonic roots are not very different from the Phoenician : Herr signifies lord, and alles, all; so that Herr-alles is, with the exception of the guttural inflection which is effaced, the same word as that of Hercules, used by the Thracians and the Etruscans. The Greeks have made a transposition of letters in 'UpaKKijs (Heracles) so as to evade the guttural harshness without entirely losing it.
< Goguet, Origine des Lois el des Arts, t. i., p. 359.
s Voyez Epiphane, H ceres, xxvi., et conferez avec Beausobre, Hist, du Manich., t. ii., p. 328.
1 1 have followed the tradition most analogous to the development of my ideas; but I am aware that, upon this point, as upon many others, I have only to choose. The historic fact, in that which relates to the sacerdotal archives which Homer consulted in composing his poems, is everywhere the same au
The Essence and Form of Poetry 37 believe in the very singular accounts which time has preserved to us, thanks to the blind zeal of certain Christians who have treated them as heresies, this Helen, whose name applied to the moon signifies the resplendent, this woman whom Paris carried away from her spouse Menelaus, is nothing else than the symbol of the human soul,* torn by fond; but the accessory details vary greatly according to the writers who relate them.
For example, one reads in a small fragment attributed to Antipater of Sidon and preserved in Greece Anthology, that Homer, bom at Thebes in Egypt, drew his epic subjects from the archives of the temple of Isis ; from another source, Ptolemy Ephestion, cited by Photius, that the Grfeek poet had received from a priest of Memphis, named Thamith, the original writings of an inspired damsel, named Phancy.
Strabo, without mentioning any place in particular, said in general, speaking of the long journeys of Homer, that this poet went everywhere to consult the religious archives and the oracles preserved in the temples; and Diodorus of Sicily gives evidence sometimes that he borrowed many things from a sibyl by the name of Manto, daughter of Tiresias; and sometimes that he appropriated the verse of a pythoness of Delphi, named Daphne.
All these contradictory details prove, in reality, the truth; for whether it be from Thebes, Memphis, Tyre, Delphi, or elsewhere that Homer drew the subject of his chants, matters not with the subject which occupies me: the important point, serving as proof of my assertions, is, that they have been, in fact, drawn from a sanctuary; and what has determined me to choose Tyre rather than Thebes or Memphis, is that Tyre was the first mother city of Greece.
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