Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
But supposing these were to be allowed, how can the rest be granted, or
even so much as understood? When we call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus,
we make use of the common manner of speaking; but do you think any one
so mad as to believe that his food is a Deity? With regard to those
who, you say, from having been men became Gods, I should be very
willing to learn of you, either how it was possible formerly, or, if it
had ever been, why is it not so now? I do not conceive, as things are
at present, how Hercules,
Burn'd with fiery torches on Mount Oeta,
as Accius says, should rise, with the flames,
To the eternal mansions of his father.
Besides, Homer also says that Ulysses[250] met him in the shades below,
among the other dead.
But yet I should be glad to know which Hercules we should chiefly
worship; for they who have searched into those histories, which are but
little known, tell us of several. The most ancient is he who fought
with Apollo about the Tripos of Delphi, and is son of Jupiter and
Lisyto; and of the most ancient Jupiters too, for we find many Jupiters
also in the Grecian chronicles. The second is the Egyptian Hercules,
and is believed to be the son of Nilus, and to be the author of the
Phrygian characters. The third, to whom they offered sacrifices, is one
of the Idaei Dactyli.[251] The fourth is the son of Jupiter and Asteria,
the sister of Latona, chiefly honored by the Tyrians, who pretend that
Carthago[252] is his daughter. The fifth, called Belus, is worshipped
in India. The sixth is the son of Alcmena by Jupiter; but by the third
Jupiter, for there are many Jupiters, as you shall soon see.
XVII. Since this examination has led me so far, I will convince you
that in matters of religion I have learned more from the pontifical
rites, the customs of our ancestors, and the vessels of Numa,[253]
which Laelius mentions in his little Golden Oration, than from all the
learning of the Stoics; for tell me, if I were a disciple of your
school, what answer could I make to these questions? If there are Gods,
are nymphs also Goddesses? If they are Goddesses, are Pans and Satyrs
in the same rank? But they are not; consequently, nymphs are not
Goddesses. Yet they have temples publicly dedicated to them. What do
you conclude from thence? Others who have temples are not therefore
Gods. But let us go on. You call Jupiter and Neptune Gods; their
brother Pluto, then, is one; and if so, those rivers also are Deities
which they say flow in the infernal regions--Acheron, Cocytus,
Pyriphlegethon; Charon also, and Cerberus, are Gods; but that cannot be
allowed; nor can Pluto be placed among the Deities. What, then, will
you say of his brothers?
Thus reasons Carneades; not with any design to destroy the existence of
the Gods (for what would less become a philosopher?), but to convince
us that on that matter the Stoics have said nothing plausible. If,
then, Jupiter and Neptune are Gods, adds he, can that divinity be
denied to their father Saturn, who is principally worshipped throughout
the West? If Saturn is a God, then must his father, Coelus, be one too,
and so must the parents of Coelus, which are the Sky and Day, as also
their brothers and sisters, which by ancient genealogists are thus
named: Love, Deceit, Fear, Labor, Envy, Fate, Old Age, Death, Darkness,
Misery, Lamentation, Favor, Fraud, Obstinacy, the Destinies, the
Hesperides, and Dreams; all which are the offspring of Erebus and
Night. These monstrous Deities, therefore, must be received, or else
those from whom they sprung must be disallowed.
XVIII. If you say that Apollo, Vulcan, Mercury, and the rest of that
sort are Gods, can you doubt the divinity of Hercules and AEsculapius,
Bacchus, Castor and Pollux? These are worshipped as much as those, and
even more in some places. Therefore they must be numbered among the
Gods, though on the mother's side they are only of mortal race.
Aristaeus, who is said to have been the son of Apollo, and to have found
out the art of making oil from the olive; Theseus, the son of Neptune;
and the rest whose fathers were Deities, shall they not be placed in
the number of the Gods? But what think you of those whose mothers were
Goddesses? They surely have a better title to divinity; for, in the
civil law, as he is a freeman who is born of a freewoman, so, in the
law of nature, he whose mother is a Goddess must be a God. The isle
Astypalaea religiously honor Achilles; and if he is a Deity, Orpheus and
Rhesus are so, who were born of one of the Muses; unless, perhaps,
there may be a privilege belonging to sea marriages which land
marriages have not. Orpheus and Rhesus are nowhere worshipped; and if
they are therefore not Gods, because they are nowhere worshipped as
such, how can the others be Deities? You, Balbus, seemed to agree with
me that the honors which they received were not from their being
regarded as immortals, but as men richly endued with virtue.
But if you think Latona a Goddess, how can you avoid admitting Hecate
to be one also, who was the daughter of Asteria, Latona's sister?
Certainly she is one, if we may judge by the altars erected to her in
Greece. And if Hecate is a Goddess, how can you refuse that rank to the
Eumenides? for they also have a temple at Athens, and, if I understand
right, the Romans have consecrated a grove to them. The Furies, too,
whom we look upon as the inspectors into and scourges of impiety, I
suppose, must have their divinity too. As you hold that there is some
divinity presides over every human affair, there is one who presides
over the travail of matrons, whose name, _Natio_, is derived _a
nascentibus_, from nativities, and to whom we used to sacrifice in our
processions in the fields of Ardaea; but if she is a Deity, we must
likewise acknowledge all those you mentioned, Honor, Faith, Intellect,
Concord; by the same rule also, Hope, Juno, Moneta,[254] and every idle
phantom, every child of our imagination, are Deities. But as this
consequence is quite inadmissible, do not you either defend the cause
from which it flows.
XIX. What say you to this? If these are Deities, which we worship and
regard as such, why are not Serapis and Isis[255] placed in the same
rank? And if they are admitted, what reason have we to reject the Gods
of the barbarians? Thus we should deify oxen, horses, the ibis, hawks,
asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves, cats, and many other beasts. If
we go back to the source of this superstition, we must equally condemn
all the Deities from which they proceed. Shall Ino, whom the Greeks
call Leucothea, and we Matuta, be reputed a Goddess, because she was
the daughter of Cadmus, and shall that title be refused to Circe and
Pasiphae,[256] who had the sun for their father, and Perseis, daughter
of the Ocean, for their mother? It is true, Circe has divine honors
paid her by our colony of Circaeum; therefore you call her a Goddess;
but what will you say of Medea, the granddaughter of the Sun and the
Ocean, and daughter of AEetes and Idyia? What will you say of her
brother Absyrtus, whom Pacuvius calls AEgialeus, though the other name
is more frequent in the writings of the ancients? If you did not deify
one as well as the other, what will become of Ino? for all these
Deities have the same origin.
Shall Amphiaraus and Tryphonius be called Gods? Our publicans, when
some lands in Boeotia were exempted from the tax, as belonging to the
immortal Gods, denied that any were immortal who had been men. But if
you deify these, Erechtheus surely is a God, whose temple and priest we
have seen at Athens. And can you, then, refuse to acknowledge also
Codrus, and many others who shed their blood for the preservation of
their country? And if it is not allowable to consider all these men as
Gods, then, certainly, probabilities are not in favor of our
acknowledging the _Divinity_ of those previously mentioned beings from
whom these have proceeded.
It is easy to observe, likewise, that if in many countries people have
paid divine honors to the memory of those who have signalized their
courage, it was done in order to animate others to practise virtue, and
to expose themselves the more willingly to dangers in their country's
cause. From this motive the Athenians have deified Erechtheus and his
daughters, and have erected also a temple, called Leocorion, to the
daughters of Leus.[257] Alabandus is more honored in the city which he
founded than any of the more illustrious Deities; from thence
Stratonicus had a pleasant turn--as he had many--when he was troubled
with an impertinent fellow who insisted that Alabandus was a God, but
that Hercules was not; "Very well," says he, "then let the anger of
Alabandus fall upon me, and that of Hercules upon you."
XX. Do you not consider, Balbus, to what lengths your arguments for the
divinity of the heaven and the stars will carry you? You deify the sun
and the moon, which the Greeks take to be Apollo and Diana. If the moon
is a Deity, the morning-star, the other planets, and all the fixed
stars are also Deities; and why shall not the rainbow be placed in that
number? for it is so wonderfully beautiful that it is justly said to be
the daughter of Thaumas.[258] But if you deify the rainbow, what regard
will you pay to the clouds? for the colors which appear in the bow are
only formed of the clouds, one of which is said to have brought forth
the Centaurs; and if you deify the clouds, you cannot pay less regard
to the seasons, which the Roman people have really consecrated.
Tempests, showers, storms, and whirlwinds must then be Deities. It is
certain, at least, that our captains used to sacrifice a victim to the
waves before they embarked on any voyage.
As you deify the earth under the name of Ceres,[259] because, as you
said, she bears fruits (_a gerendo_), and the ocean under that of
Neptune, rivers and fountains have the same right. Thus we see that
Maso, the conqueror of Corsica, dedicated a temple to a fountain, and
the names of the Tiber, Spino, Almo, Nodinus, and other neighboring
rivers are in the prayers[260] of the augurs. Therefore, either the
number of such Deities will be infinite, or we must admit none of them,
and wholly disapprove of such an endless series of superstition.
XXI. None of all these assertions, then, are to be admitted. I must
proceed now, Balbus, to answer those who say that, with regard to those
deified mortals, so religiously and devoutly reverenced, the public
opinion should have the force of reality. To begin, then: they who are
called theologists say that there are three Jupiters; the first and
second of whom were born in Arcadia; one of whom was the son of AEther,
and father of Proserpine and Bacchus; the other the son of Coelus, and
father of Minerva, who is called the Goddess and inventress of war; the
third one born of Saturn in the isle of Crete,[261] where his sepulchre
is shown. The sons of Jupiter ([Greek: Dioskouroi]) also, among the
Greeks, have many names; first, the three who at Athens have the title
of Anactes,[262] Tritopatreus, Eubuleus, and Dionysus, sons of the most
ancient king Jupiter and Proserpine; the next are Castor and Pollux,
sons of the third Jupiter and Leda; and, lastly, three others, by some
called Alco,[263] Melampus, and Tmolus, sons of Atreus, the son of
Pelops.
As to the Muses, there were at first four--Thelxiope, Aoede, Arche, and
Melete--daughters of the second Jupiter; afterward there were nine,
daughters of the third Jupiter and Mnemosyne; there were also nine
others, having the same appellations, born of Pierus and Antiopa, by
the poets usually called Pierides and Pieriae. Though _Sol_ (the sun) is
so called, you say, because he is _solus_ (single); yet how many suns
do theologists mention? There is one, the son of Jupiter and grandson