These are the only passages I can discover, to which the
mythological notion seems applicable; and I think it may
be safely asserted that, if we had the word no where else,
these would not have been sufficient to establish, or even
suggest, such an interpretation. We shall soon find that
we must give the title a much humbler meaning. Before
going further, I will refer to the interpretations offered
by Damm[1]. He says it is honoris vocabulum and that
heroes were to men much as (
Greek characters) to (Greek characters) This analogy
of ratios comes, in fact, from Eustathius, whose words I
transcribe. [2] (Greek characters) This, as I observed before,
belongs to an age later than that of the Homeric poems.
The heroes, says Damm, were usually of divine blood, but
the principal warriors got the name also. " In Homero
autem omnes fortes bellatores et viri, si sunt illustres natalibus,
dicuntur heroes.'"' He makes (Greek characters), prayer or imprecation,
the theme, and places (Greek characters) between the words (Greek characters)
and so on, and (Greek characters). He also suggests that it may be
derived from one of the following words; (Greek characters) the earth;
(Greek characters); (Greek characters); (Greek characters). Some of these he seems to me to have
taken from the scholiasts on the passage of Hesiod. Proclus
says [3] (Greek characters),
(Greek characters)
referring to the 60th line of the (Greek characters). Tzetzes
says as follows: (Greek characters),
- r15 Schol. in Hes.(
Greek characters) H. 158.
