BOOK II.
The Ka-
beiroi and
Kor}'ban-
tes.
man of the sea, who reappears in the voyages of Sindbad. He is necessarily a subject, some said a son, of Poseidon ; and he Uves not far from the river Aigj-ptos, a phrase akin to the myth of the Aithio- pian Memnon. Huge flocks of seals sport around him in the waters, like clouds gambolling in the heavens ; and when the heat is greatest he raises himself from the deeps and takes his rest on the sea-shore. It is at this time that Virgil represents Aristaios as fettering the old man by the advice of his mother Arethousa. The attempt is followed by many changes of form ; and Proteus ^ becomes first a fire, then a snake, and passes through other changes before he is compelled to return to his proper form. In Proteus, the king of Egypt, we have one of those persons of whom the Euemerists availed themselves to escape from the necessity of believing the incredible tale of Troy. According to one version of the story, Paris came to Egj'pt with Helen in the course of his homeward wanderings from Sparta. It was easy to say that the real Helen went no further, and that the Helen seen in Ilion was only a phantom with which Proteus cheated the senses of Paris and his countrymea It is enough to remark that of such a tale the poets of our Iliad and Odyssey know nothing ; and that the Egyptian Proteus is none other than the son of Poseidon, gifted with more than the wisdom of Hermes.
That the Kabeiroi and Korybantes were sometimes regarded by the Greeks as exhibiting only another phase of the idea which under- lies the conception of the mythical Kouretes, is a point scarcely open to doubt. Like the latter, they have a protecting and soothing power, and hence are nourishers of the earth and its fruits, and the givers of wine to the Argonautai. They are sons or descendants of Hephaistos or Proteus, or of Zeus and Kalliope. But as the myths of Cacus or the Kyklopes seem in some of their features to indicate the phenomena of volcanic action, so it is quite possible that such phenomena may have modified the stories told of the several classes of these mysterious beings. The fires of the Kyklopes may be either the lightnings seen in the heaven or the flames which burst from the earth ; and the mysterious flash which reveals the treasures of the earth to the Arabian prince or the Teutonic Tanhauser may equally represent both. But there can be little doubt that this group of strange and weird beings has no greater claim to be included within the domain of Arjan mythology than that which may be conceded to Kadmos, 16, Epaphos, Dionysos, Poseidon, Athamas, Adonis, Melikertes, Bacchus, Ino, or Palaimon. They are probably all the creations
' Like the Rakshas in the story of Guzra Bai (Truth's Triumph). — Frere, Deccan Tales.
