102

LARVE: LEMURES: LAMIÆ.

dants had the consolation to believe, that they acted in the sight of their progenitors, were guarded by their love, and sanctioned and animated with their approbation.

The Larvæ and Lemures were the spirits of wicked men deceased, who, as they had brutalised themselves with sensual indulgences during their past lives, found it difficult to detach their thick and half-corporeal souls from their bodies after death, and were condemned by day to repose among rotten carcasses and putrefaction, and by night to wander the earth, to the no small terror and injury of its inhabitants: they frequently haunted the wicked and impious without ceasing, appeared in every frightful form that can be imagined, and never allowed them a moment of tranquillity and repose.

The Romans entertained so great awe of these malevolent beings, that, by way of averting their vengeance, they instituted an annual festival in their honour in the month of May, called Lemuralia': during this solemnity, which lasted three days, all the temples of the Gods were shut, and marriages were prohibited; they burned beans and other vegetable substances, the smell of which was thought to be insupportable to the Larvæ; and they repeated magical charms, and beat upon drums and kettles, by these means compelling the ghosts to depart, and no longer to come and disturb the tranquillity of their relations

on earth.

Lamiæ is another term we meet with in ancient mythology, and is nearly connected with the idea of the Larva: the Lamia were a species of de

Ov. Fasti, v. 421 et 489.

GENII, OR DEMONS.

103

mons, who assumed the forms of beautiful women, and whose favourite occupation was supposed to be first to entice young children away by their specious allurements, and then to devour them.

The Lares, the Larvæ and Lemures were frequently spoken of by the general name of Genii; the word Genius beside this is sometimes employed by the classic writers as a general name for the power of plastic nature by which all things are generated, and shaped, and kept alive: in this sense it is to be regarded as a name, sacred to the true God who created the world, or representative of his operations in the act of creation.

But the most frequent use of the word Genius in the ancient mythology, is in a sense somewhat similar to that of Guardian Angel in Christian writers: to every man were appointed at the hour of his birth two supernatural attendants, a good and an evil Genius, or, according to the Greek word Dæmon: these two spirits perpetually con tended with each other for the chief possession of the man to whom they were addicted: the good Genius was incessantly urging him forward to virtue, glory and prosperity, smoothing the obstacles which occurred, and keeping up his courage: while the evil Genius as constantly supplied him with treacherous suggestions, and eagerly pushed him on to vice, infamy and ruin': there is a beautiful tale, written by Voltaire on this subject, entitled the Black and the White.

Socrates, the most excellent and virtuous of all the ancient philosophers, constantly ascribed all that was right and honourable in his life and ▾ Plut. in Theag. et al. p.

Xen. Cyrop. vi. 1.

actions to the suggestions of his good dæmon: he said, he felt the motions of this friendly spirit as they rose in his mind, and affirmed that they were so distinct from every other sensation to which he was subject, that he was in no danger of ever committing any mistake respecting them. It is related of Brutus, one of the Roman senators by whom Julius Cæsar was killed, that, a short time before his death, a spirit came to him in the night in his tent, having assumed the form of the dead Cæsar, and said to him, "I am thy evil Genius, Brutus!" to which Brutus, being a man of great courage, rejoined, "Wherefore dost thou come?" "To tell thee,” said the spirit," that I will meet thee again at Philippi":" at which place Brutus, having been defeated in battle by the friends of Cæsar, killed himself with his own sword.

A variety of poetical phrases have been built upon this idea of every man being attended by a Genius who fostered and protected him: the day of a man's birth is called the "genial day," the marriage bed is styled the "genial bed," and wine, which maketh glad the heart of man,' is expressed by the "genial bowl:" likewise such persons as live merrily, and freely partake of whatever is grateful to their appetites, are said to" indulge their genius."

w Plut. vit. Cæsar. ad fin.

CHAP. XIII.

OF MONSTERS.

The Gorgons-destroyed by Perseus.-The Graiæ.-Bellona.-Pegasus and Chrysaor.-The Lybian Serpents. -Geryon and Echidna.-Orthus, Cerberus, Hydra, and Chimæra.-Sphinx and the Nemean Lion.Scylla. The Cyclops.-The Sirens.-The Harpies.

ONE branch of the accounts of the Grecian mythology is monsters: the Grecian mythology, with its thirty thousand Gods, was complete in the time of Homer and Hesiod, when reading and writing were yet in their infancy: and it is past a doubt, that the Greeks did not invent their mythology themselves, but borrowed it from other nations in remoter ages: to remote and dark ages belong the tales of ghosts, and witchcraft, and giants, and a thousand other strange and terrible things: you need not wonder then that monsters make one chapter in the history of the Gods of the Greeks.

Nereus, son of Pontus, or the sea, had à brother named Phorcys*, who according to the custom of the Grecian Gods, married his sister, Ceto, and. by her became father of the Gorgons.

The Gorgons, according to some, were a nation of women, just like what we read of the Amazons, and were conquered, as will be seen hereafter, by Perseus: the most received account.

* Hes. The. 233 et seqq.

of them however is, that they were three sisters, by name Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa: these three, particularly Medusa, who is oftenest mentioned, are said by some writers to have been at first virgins of the most spotless beauty: but Me. dusa, being seduced by Neptune, and having yielded to his will and become his mistress, was immediately changed by Minerva, the Goddess of wisdom and prudence, into a horrible monster: her mouth was wide like the mouth of a lion, her teeth were of a fearful magnitude, her great staring eyes had the property of turning every one that looked on them into stone, and a thousand vipers writhed themselves about her brows instead of hair: an allegory by which the ancients pro» bably intended to express how ugly vice and profligacy make their votaries appear in the eyes of the discerning and the good: the same description that applies to Medusa, holds equally of her two sisters.

The Gorgons made so wanton a use of their powers, that they turned all their neighbours into stone, and it became doubtful whether in a short time the world would be any otherwise peopled than by a multitude of stones in human figure: Jupiter in pity sent his son Perseus to destroy them: he was armed by the Gods for this dangerous expedition, and among other things, Mercury gave him wings to fly, Pluto an invisible helmet, and Minerva a mirror-shield, by looking in which he could discover how his enemy was disposed, without any danger of meeting her eyes: thus accoutered he made terrible work with the Gorgons: he attacked them before, and be

y Hes. The, 274.