Legendary Hero Research Articles

A Roman River: and a Roman poet

To-day, not for the first time, the borderland between France and Germany, a land of hills, forests, and rivers, has been the unhappy scene of warfare. Though its pleasant prospects are worthy of activities less vile, man has used the natural gateways of this region for purposes of war, as well as of peaceful intercourse, discreditably often. It is through one of these gateways that the Mosel flows, linking the Gauls and the Germanics. This delightful river rises in the Vosges and, flowing north-eastward, adds breadth to the broad Rhine at Coblenz. On its way it passes by Metz, of French military fame, and later by Trier, or Trèves, a lovely old place which as Augusta Treverorum was in Roman times one of the most important towns of western Europe. Now the river's course is disfigured by fortified barriers, named after a legendary hero and a modern politician. But in Roman times it was a land of peace more continuously than at any other period.

Research Items

White Immigrants in Polynesian Tradition.—Mr. W. Ivens, in Man for March, discusses a number of traditions relating to white beings which occur in various parts of the Pacific. Malekula, New Hebrides, is said once to have been inhabited by a race called Ambat, who were white, and when Europeans first arrived on the island, they were believed to belong to that race and called by the same name. The Maoris believed in the existence of a white ra*ce of atua, and on Motu Island, Banks group, Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Patteson were taken for Kwat, the legendary hero, the origin of the association possibly being that he may have been supposed to be white. On North Mala, Solomon Islands, immigrants, white in colour, are said to have arrived in outrigger canoes at a place called Suuna Rii. They wore clothes and coverings to conceal their hair. Their hair was red, but for anyone to see it meant death at their hands. No name is given them, but they are accredited with the introduction of fighting, of magic, and of food plants, including the areca nut. They are worshipped on North Mala as agalo i mae, ghosts of war. The head covering of the agalo i mae survives in the pigtail of the statues of south-east Solomons, and the carved figures on Vanua Leva, Banks Islands, have a decided pigtail. In the Paumotus and Tahiti there are traditions of red-headed women who rose up from the floor of the lagoon. If, as seems possible, any connexion is to be seen between all these legends, the people to whom they relate may represent a movement into the Pacific at a very early date.

The Historical Side of the old English Poem of ‘Widsith’

Nearly ninety years have passed away since J. J. Cony-beare prepared the first edition of the Old English poem of ‘Widsith,’ or ‘The Traveller's Song,’ for inclusion among his ‘Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,’ a work published in 1826. ‘Widsith’ is the oldest Germanic poem we have and its imprint excited immediate attention. The student of legend was attracted to it by the close connexion it shows with Germanic saga, and the historian timidly acknowledged the appeal it made to him to honour it as a genuine source of information. The characteristics of the poem have combined to place it in the forefront of that great mass of dubious documents which are found written in sundry western languages and which purport to deal with the story of the legendary heroes of Germanic race from the time of Constantius Chlorus to the middle of the sixth century.

The Name Avgvstvs

On 13th January, 27 B.C. Octavian completed his first attempt to find a constitutional basis for his extraordinary position, and on 16th January he received from the senate the cognomen Augustus, which henceforward remained the personal appellation of the reigning Roman emperors, and, substantially, of them alone. It has been generally recognised that the name was well chosen, but no writer, so far as I know, has offered any positive reason why it in particular should have been chosen. Yet some reason is surely needed. Before 27 B.C. the name, though not altogether unknown, does not seem to have served as a Roman proper name. It had not been borne as a cognomen by any republican statesman, or indeed by any historical character or legendary hero. It was an adjective adapted by Octavian. We can, indeed, see how much it had to recommend it to the genius in adaptation. It possessed no political associations of any sort; it had belonged to nobody before Octavian and recalled no one's peculiar policy or aims. It had been merely an adjective used occasionally, yet not very often, in earlier literature (since Ennius), and, so far as it implied anything at all, implied simply a semi-religious sanctity—‘sancta vocant augusta patres,’ as Ovid says. Thus it fitted singularly well with the half-divinity of the DIVI FILIVS. Just as Augustus, early in his career (40 B.C.), had dropped the name Julius and had adapted an appellation (Imp. Caesar, etc.) which marked him off from the ordinary citizens, thereby indicating by the subtle change his great aims and his ambitions, so by the name Augustus he again set himself apart. Still, the name did not lie ready-made to his hand; we need some reason, beyond its fitness, to explain why his peculiar choice tell on it; such a reason can, I think, be learnt from coins.