418 HISTORY OF GREECE tally uncertified ; beyond this point we cannot penetrate, without the light of extrinsic evidence, since there is no intrinsic mark tc distinguish truth from plausible fiction. 1 It remains that we should notice the manner in which the an- cient mythes were received and dealt with by the philosophers. The earliest expression which we hear, on the part of philosophy, is the severe censure bestowed upon them on ethical grounds by Xenophanes of Kolophon, and seemingly by some others of his contemporaries. 2 It was apparently in reply to such charges, which did not admit of being directly rebutted, that Theagenes of Rhegium (about 520 B. c.) first started tho idea of a double meaning in the Homeric and Hesiodic narratives, an interior sense, different from that which the words in their obvious mean- ing bore, yet to a certain extent analogous, and discoverable by sagacious divination. Upon this principle, he allegorized espe- cially the battle of the gods in the Iliad. 2 In the succeeding cen- 1 The learned Mr. Jacob Bryant regards the explanations of Paloephatus <is if they were founded upon real fact. He admits, for example, the city No phele alibied by that author in his exposition of the fable of the Centaurs. Moreover, he speaks -with much commendation of Palaephatns generally : " He (Talsephatus) wrote early, and seems to have been a serious and sen- Bible person ; one who saw the absurdity of the fables upon which the theology of his country was founded." (Ancient Mythology, vol. i. p. 411- 435.) So also Sir Thomas Brown (Enquiry into Vulgar Errors, Book I. chap. vi. p. 221, ed. 1835) alludes to Palaephatus as having incontestably pointed out the real basis of the fables. " And surely the fabulous inclination of those days was greater than any since ; which swarmed so with fables, and from such slender grounds took hints for fictions, poisoning the world ever after : wherein how far they succeeded, may be exemplified from Palsepha- tns, in his Book of Fabulous Narrations." 8 Xenophan. ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathemat. ix. 193. He also disap- proved of the rites, accompanied by mourning and wailing, with which the Eleates worshipped Leukothea: he told them, el uev $ebv viro7>afifidvovai, pri dprivelv el 6e av&puTrov, pi dveiv ( Aristotel. Rhet. ii. 23). Xenophanes pronounced the battles of the Titans, Gigantes, and Centaurs to be " fictions of our predecessors," irfa'xTfiaTa rCtv irporspuv (Xenophan. Fragm. 1. p. 42, ed. Schneidewin). See a carious comparison of the Grecian and Roman theology in Dicnys. Halicarn. Ant. Rom. ii. 20.
- Schol. Iliad, xx. 67 : Tatian. adv. Graec. c. 48. Heraklcitus indignantly
repelled the impudent atheists who found fault with the divine mythes of th
