|
Marcus Varro, however, is not willing to credit lying fables against
the gods, lest he should find something dishonoring to their majesty;
and therefore he will not admit that the Areopagus, the place where
the Apostle Paul disputed with the Athenians, got this name because
Mars, who in Greek is called 'Arhs, when he was charged with the
crime of homicide, and was judged by twelve gods in that field, was
acquitted by the sentence of six; because it was the custom, when the
votes were equal, to acquit rather than condemn. Against this
opinion, which is much most widely published, he tries, from the
notices of obscure books, to support another reason for this name,
lest the Athenians should be thought to have called it Areopagus from
the words" Mars" and" field," as if it were the field of Mars,
to the dishonor of the gods, forsooth, from whom he thinks lawsuits
and judgments far removed. And he asserts that this which is said
about Mars is not less false than what is said about the three
goddesses, to wit, Juno, Minerva, and Venus, whose contest for
the palm of beauty, before Paris as judge, in order to obtain the
golden apple, is not only related, but is celebrated in songs and
dances amid the applause of the theatres, in plays meant to please the
gods who take pleasure in these crimes of their own, whether real or
fabled. Varro does not believe these things, because they are
incompatible with the nature of the gods and of morality; and yet, in
giving not a fabulous but a historic reason for the name of Athens, he
inserts in his books the strife between Neptune and Minerva as to
whose name should be given to that city, which was so great that, when
they contended by the display of prodigies, even Apollo dared not
judge between them when consulted; but, in order to end the strife of
the gods, just as Jupiter sent the three goddesses we have named to
Paris, so he sent them to men, when Minerva won by the vote, and
yet was defeated by the punishment of her own voters, for she was
unable to confer the title of Athenians on the women who were her
friends, although she could impose it on the men who were her
opponents. In these times, when Cranaos reigned at Athens as the
successor of Cecrops, as Varro writes, but, according to our
Eusebius and Jerome, while Cecrops himself still remained, the
flood occurred which is called Deucalion's, because it occurred
chiefly in those parts of the earth in which he reigned. But this
flood did not at all reach Egypt or its vicinity.
|
|