
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1901 Excerpt:...as is commonly heldi, or from the north-west? There seems to be no evidence of any weight to support the former view. Let us therefore see if we can find any for the latter. It is at once rendered probable that the Acheans entered southern Thessaly from Epirus when we recollect that the worship of the Dodonean Zeus was a strong feature in the cult of the Acheans of Phthiotis. If they had come from Thrace, Achilles would have been found invoking the aid of some deity whose immemorial fane was in Thrace rather than one whose sanctuary lay in Epirus. But on the contrary, Ares the deity whose home was in Thrace cuts a very poor figure in Homet He is wounded by the Achean hero Diomede; moreover, he sympathizes with the Trojans, and not with the Acheans, the significance of which fact is strengthened when we remember that the Thracians are the allies of the Trojans. The inference here drawn from the worship of Dodonean Zeus by the Acheans is fully justified not only by the veneration in which Jerusalem and Mecca are held by Jew and Arab, no matter where domiciled, but what is more to the point, by instances from the north of Europe. Thus the Frisians and their cognate tribes esteemed Heligoland (Holy Island) as their chief sanctuary. Yet this little island lies as far to the east as it well may be from Frisia, to which the Frisians had probably advanced from the north-easti. Similarly the many Germanic tribes regarded the island of Seeland in the Baltic as their chief shrine2, and it may be that in their advance downwards from Scandinavia, this island had long been the seat of their common worship and continued still to be venerated long after they had gained a firm foothold on the mainland of what is now Germany. i Leaf and Bayfield, Iliad, p. ix. It is probable...
Page Count:
232
Publication Date:
2012-03-06
ISBN-10:
1130591603
ISBN-13:
9781130591606
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