The History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greece, Volume 2 (of 3)

Footnote 2:

Athen. xiii. 2. Mr. Mitford defers too much to “the traditions received in the polished ages” when, upon the authority of such traditions and of such writers as Justin (ii. 6.), he appears to conclude that, before the time of Cecrops, the people of Attica were in knowledge and civilisation inferior to the wildest savages. Hist, of Greece, i. 58. Upon legends and authors of this description no reliance can be placed. If society existed, everything “indispensable” to society also existed; therefore, if marriage be so, it could not be unknown. Besides, how happens it that this same Cecrops who instituted marriage did not likewise teach them to sow corn, which, if Egypt was, when he left it, a civilised country, must have been as familiar to him as matrimony? This most necessary acquisition, however, they were left to make many ages afterwards, during the reign of Erechtheus. Justin, ii. 6.

But if Cecrops ever lived, and should not be regarded as a mere mythological creation, we must still reject the comparatively modern tradition which fetches him from Egypt. Coming from the East, he would more probably have instituted polygamy than the contrary. In every point of view the tradition is absurd; for it at once represents the people of Attica as savages, and as having made considerable advances in the science of civil government. They have already emerged from the state of patriarchal rule, not by any means the lowest, and have arrived at the monarchical period in the history of society—for Cecrops marries the daughter of king Actæos—yet have not made the first step in refinement,[3] have not passed the barrier dividing the rudest savage from even the barbarian,—had not made the discovery that, for the preservation of society, children must be cared for and maintained, which is impossible until they have other fathers than the community. We must, therefore, reject this Cecropian legend, and acknowledge that, from the earliest times of which any record remains, the people of Hellas married and were given in marriage.

Footnote 3:

Cf. Goguet, Origine des Lois. iv. 394, where the learned author contends most chivalrously for the received theory. Apollodorus, however, represents Cecrops as an Autochthon, συμφύες ἔχων σῶμα ἀνδρὸς καὶ δράκοντος. iii. 14. 1.—The reason why he was thus said to partake of two natures—half-man and half-snake—has been very variously and very fantastically explained. Diodorus Siculus, (i. p. 17,) derives his title to be considered half a man and half a beast, from his being, by choice a Greek, by nature a barbarian. Yet he conceives that it was the beast that civilised the man. Others explain διφυὴς somewhat differently to mean that he was of gigantic stature and understood two languages: διὰ μῆκος σώματος οὑτω καλούμενος, ὅς φήσιν ὁ Φιλόχορος, ἢ ὅτι Αἰγυπτίων τὰς δύο γλώσσας ἠπίστατο.—Euseb. No. 460.—Eustathius, familiar with the fables of the mythology, turns the tables upon Cecrops, and conceives that he may have civilised himself, not the Athenians, by settling in Attica. He supposes him ἀπὸ ὄφεως εἰς ἀνθρωπὸν ἐλθειν, ἐπειδὴ ἐκεῖνος ἐλθὼν εἰς Ἑλλάδα καὶ τὸν βάρβαρον Αἰγυπτιασμὸν ἀφεις, χρηστοὺς ἀναλάβετο τρόπους πολιτικοὺς.—In Dionys. Peneg. p. 56.

Footnote 4:

Deipnosoph. xiii. 2.—Compare the account in Diogenes Laertius, ii. 5. 10.—The conduct of Socrates, who married Xantippe to prove the goodness of his temper, was imitated, we are told, by a Christian lady, who “desired of St. Athanasius to procure for her, out of the widows fed from the ecclesiastical corban, an old woman morose, peevish, and impatient, that she might by the society of so ungentle a person have often occasion to exercise her patience, her forgiveness, and charity.”—Jeremy Taylor’s Life of Christ, i. 384.