hans f. k. gunther 1929 [like a greek god]

8/7/2019 Hans F. K. Gunther 1929 [Like a Greek God]

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LIKE A GREEK GOD....

Translated by Vivian Bird fromProfessorHans F. K. GnthersLebensgeschichte des hellenischen Volkes

Fragment of a scene on a Greek red-figure vase depicting (from left to right)

Odysseus, Agamemnon and Thersites.

[Gnther (1929) 21]

The Homeric poems describe the gods and goddesses as blond and blue-eyed; the

word for bright hair is generallyxanths, into whose definition we will enter later.TheIliaddescribes Demeter as blonde, Aphrodite as golden-haired; it describes

Athena as blue-eyed, and in fact refers to her fifty-seven times as Zeus blue-eyed

daughter Athena. The world is glaukopis, which may be deduced from glaukos,

meaning bright, sparkling. Pindar later described Athena asglaukopis andxantha,thereby clearly referring to her blue eyes and golden hair-colour.

After Homer, the description glaukopis becomes more seldom; however, it appears in

isolated instances in Sophocles (Oedipus at Colonus, 705) and with Aristophanes(Thesmophoriazusae, 317). A conversation between a Greek and a Roman in the

Attic Nights of the Roman writer Aulus Gellius, which compares colour meanings

in the two languages, gives information about the colour references of the word

glaukopis. There (II, 26, 18), glaucumis explained as meaning grey-blue and (II,26, 19), the description glaukopis of the goddess Athena is explained as caesia, theheavenly blue-eyed. The same tradition, going back to Homer, of the blue-eyedness


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of Athena, is found in the saga of Byssa and Meropis: there, according to Boios (in

Antoninus Liberalis, Collection of Metamorphoses, 15) Agron mocks the bright eyes

of the goddess and praises his own dark eyes, and even with the Roman poet Hyginus,

in the first century AD, Hera and Aphrodite mock the goddess Athena on account ofher bright eyes: quod caesia erat. The word glaukopis was synonymous with

glaukmmatos, bright-eyed, in contrast to melanmmatos, dark-eyed. Thus, in acommentary to a passage in theIliad(IV, 147), the Achaean hero Menelaus was

described by the commentator Peisander as blond-haired, tall in stature and bright-

eyed, and thereby he used the word glaukmmatos (xanthokmes, mgas en

glaukmmatos).

The Odyssey describes the god Rhadamanthys as blond, Aphrodite as golden-haired,

Athena again and again as blue-eyed. Also, a name like Phoebus Apollo, deduced

fromphoibos, meaning bright, shining, radiating, may not only describe the nature

of a Sun-god, but also the bright colour of skin, hair and eyes. The sea-god Poseidon,

on the other hand, is described by the Odyssey (III, 6), as dark-haired and dark-eyed

a god of the pre-Hellenic Mediterranean world, whose defeat in battle by Athena in

Attica, was represented on the gable of the Parthenon, on the Acropolis.

The figures of the human world are featured by the Homeric poems as being light-skinned and bright-eyed; thus Achilles, Menelaus and Meleager of theIliadare

described as blond, likewise Briseis and Agamede among the feminine figures; Helen

is (III, 121) called glittering. The Odyssey in many places describes (Wilhelm

Sieglin has recorded all these places), Menelaus as blond, it describes Penelope as

blonde, Hermione as blonde and Aphrodite as golden-haired. TheIliadand Odyssey

mention lily-armed goddesses and princesses, white-armed and silver-footed

goddesses and mortal women.

Karl Jax has observed that among Homeric references to mortal girls and women, as

also with the goddesses of the Homeric poems, dark hair is completely lacking, and

Georg Finsler has stressed that the blond hair-colour in Homer is held to be beautifuland striking to such an extent, that the poet, in a moment of carelessness, even calls

Odysseus blond, although he was generally accepted as dark-haired.

The description of the physical features of Odysseus, the rich in cunning, needsextensive examination, however. Odysseus diverges from the picture of the other

Homeric heroes. By theIliad(III, 193/94, 210/11) he is described as a sitting giant,appearing when seated near Agamemnon to be as tall as the latter, but in standing, to

be shorter, but also broader, more thick-set in shoulders and chest. Thus Odysseus is

not, like the other heroes, of tall, slim type. The Odyssey describes him (VI, 231) aslight-skinned, and in another place (XIII, 397, 431), his head-hair is called blond

(xanths); however, it calls his beard dark (XVI, 176). According to hair-colour,


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Odysseus is also described by the Odyssey (VI, 231; XVI, 175; XXIII, 157/58) as

hykinthos, which previously was mostly translated as brownish. This hyacinthcolour is, however, as Wilhelm Sieglin has shown, to be described as reddish,

because the hyacinth was cultivated in Hellas as a sub-type with reddish blooms.

The sturdy, thick-set and dark-bearded Odysseus is not of the same type as the otherAchaean heroes, either in respect to bodily or mental features. The distinction of his

being rich in cunning, as if of a mixed man, was probably not made consciously bythe poet; rather, must Odysseus be regarded as a saga figure of the pre-Hellenic world,

who is equilibrated by the poet as far as possible to the image of the Achaean heroes.

That he is a relic of a strange race, closest to a residue of the Hither-Asiatic type,remains distinguishable, however. Odysseus is a figure like Palamedes, a hero of the

the Achaean saga of Troy who, however, only appeared with post-Homeric poets;

half-Achaean and half-Levantine, rich in cunning and bold, part Hither-Asiatic, part

Nordic, in every way different from the open-hearted noblemen such as Achilles,

Patrocles, Agamemnon and Menelaus. Count Gobineau has already observed this weftof a strange type with Odysseus. He called him a Greek with Phoenician ancestors.

Odysseus could be courageous when necessary, but preferred cunning; his language is

malleable and seductive; lies do not terrify him, treachery does not dismay him,

wiliness causes him no trouble. Eloquent, cunning, treacherous, dangerous, he

resembles rather a pirate trader from Sidon or a senator from Carthage, while with hisrichness of thought, his imperturbability, his capacity of bridling his passions, with the

occasional moderation and modesty, which in his case always proceeds from rational

calculation, he is rather of Nordic type. V. Brard was of the opinion that the Odyssey

was indeed written by a Greek, but that its hero, Odysseus, was a Phoenician. Thus

the mental and physical nature of this hero has again and again called forth conjectureabout a pre-Hellenic origin, of which the latest is asserted by Wolfgang Aly. Aly

holds Odysseus to be a saga figure from the pre-Hellenic world of the Cretans.

In the figure of Odysseus, rich in cunning, we see the after-effect of the EastMediterranean lands on the pre-Indo-Germanic world, the weft of Hither-Asiatic race,

which was peculiar to this world, this weft being in every case stronger than the weft

of the Western (Mediterranean) race; but with this figure the later Hellas also makes

its appearance, a Hellas in which through mixture with the immigrating Indo-

Germans, together with the descendants of the original population, and throughadditional wanderings from Asia Minor, the weft of Hither-Asiatic race reached out

more and more and penetrated into the upper strata. In the later course of Greek

history, more and more Nordic/Hither-Asiatic men like Odysseus must have appearedin the leading strata, becoming more Hither-Asiatic than Nordic, and at length filled

with ever more men of preponderantly Hither-Asiatic race. Dishonesty, treachery,crafty calculation, corruptibility, and betrayal, more and more sully the pages of


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Hellenic history, indeed the history of all Hellenic tribes and settlements. In these

characteristics, the Greek appears at length very far estranged from his original Indo-

Germanic nature, from the high-aiming purity of all the early ages of the Indo-

Germanic peoples, more estranged indeed than the Persian and Iranian of theAchaemenid Age, which in its faith, Mazdaism, had increased this very Indo-

Germanic purity, the abhorrence of lies, to a proud confession of its nature. Men ofHither-Asiatic race have always been regarded as more cunning by men of other

types. The Phoenicians, a folk with strong Hither-Asiatic weft, Homer (Iliad, XIV,

288) described as treacherous men, and arch swindlers. What was sensed to be

Hither-Asiatic in Odysseus, the gift of feeling his way into mental life strange to him,the art of calculating the mental features of other men and other human groups,

appears in the later Hellenic age not only in many traders travelling from place to

place, but also in merchants of Greek language, in the graeculi paid and despised by

the Romans, but permeates also the mode of thinking of many sophists and the

opinions they taught. In his speech forFlaccus (17), and in letters to his brotherQuintus, Marcus Tullius Cicero (Letters, 30, I, 16, 28; 53, II, 4) has described the

mental make-up of many Hellenes of his age, which appeared to him, as to Western

Europeans of later ages, to be of the nature of the Levantine.

Racial science evidence about the type of the Achaean and the Greek of the Homeric

age, is represented by an assertion of theIliad(XXII, 401); there, Hector the Trojan isdescribed as dark-haired, in fact as non-Achaean, as stranger and foe. This distinction

signifies, from a racial historical aspect, an error or an injustice, for the Trojans were

themselves indeed relations of the Greeks, one of the pre-Hellenic, Indo-Germanic

tribes from the region of the lower Danubian lands. The Trojan woman Briseis is

called blonde by theIliad(XIX, 283); here the contrast is forgotten. With Hectorsdescription, the poet has wished to stress a racial contrast. This struck Dio of Prusa,

also called Dio Chrysostomos, a writer, who was born around 40 AD and lived until

the beginning of the second century AD; he has (21, 16) drawn attention to the fact

that the beauty of the Hellenes must have been other than that of the barbarians: the

Hellenes were blond like Achilles or Patrocles, the barbarians dark, as the description

of Hector shows.

The Boeotian peasant-poet Hesiod (around 700 BC), represents Homers gods,

goddesses, heroes and heroines, as blond people. Athena he each time calls blue-eyed,thus in seven places, Dionysus he describes (Theogony, 947) as blond, likewise

Ariadne and Ioleia (Fragment110).

To the idea of beautiful and noble men belong, for the Hellenic outlook, not only

features like light skin, bright hair and blue eyes, but also tall and slim stature. The

frequent turn of phrase beautiful and tall (kals kai mgas), which already appearsmany times with Homer, can be further traced in Hellenic literature from Herodotus to


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Lucian; it is used for men, women and children. In the description of Nausicaa by the

Odyssey (VI, 151) it is shown that to beauty and noble birth, according to Hellenic

views, belongs tall stature; the same idea is given by the description of Telemachus by

Nestor in the Odyssey (IV, 38). Aristotle says, in hisNicomachean Ethics (IV, 7),that to beauty belongs a tall body; small bodies could admittedly be pretty and well-

shaped, but not actually beautiful. The Western race is strikingly represented by theseshort-statured people of a pretty type. For Nordic sensitivity, the nature of the body

and mind of the Western race does not suffice for actual beauty, because the idea of

a beautiful person demands a certain gravity of soul, a greatness of soul, which was

described as megalpsycha by the Hellenes, as magnanimitas by the Romans, or asthe hchgemete of the German Middle Ages. The Western or Atlanto-Mediterranean

racial soul is too light in gravity for Nordic feeling, too sparse in content, for the

bodily features to be felt to be beautiful.

TheIliadnot only allows it to be recognised by which bodily characteristics the

Hellene of the early age was distinguished; it also shows in two examples, how theGreeks of the Homeric age viewed ugly men of the lower strata, just as later plastic art

allows the recognition of what features the free Greek ascribed to the unfree, to the

slaves of native or foreign origin. TheIliadcalls two men curly-haired: Eurybates, the

herald of Odysseus, a man with rounded shoulders, and Thersites, the immeasurable

gossip, the first demagogue in Hellas, as he was also called. Both men belong tothe lower strata, and thus are descendants of the pre-Hellenic population, of the Indo-

Germanised tribes. Thersites is bow-legged and limps; his head, which has begun to

go bald, is of a pointed form: pointed his head; sewn on the crown with thinnishwool (Iliad, II, 219). It is striking that a form of head is mentioned here, which

differs from that usual to the upper strata. With this pointed (phoxs) head, is meanteither the sickly form of the so-called tower-skull (Turmschdel), or the head form

of the Hither-Asiatic race, which with many men of this race may be described as

pointed. Thersites was also conceived by plastic art as a man of Hither-Asiatic race,with pointed head and projecting nose. On a cup from Attica of the time around 450

BC, the fable poet Aesop (sixth century BC), who probably belonged to the slave

caste, is also shown with Hither-Asiatic features.

In hisPhiloctetes (440ff), Sophocles has interpreted Thersites completely according

to Homeric tradition, in such a way that one would most of all think of the bodily andspiritual features of the Hither-Asiatic race. This race seems often to have provided

folk seducers and demagogues, for which its own capacity of feeling its way into

foreign mental life served also the calculation of the human spirit, and the loquaciousheightening in themselves of their own feelings and the wish-images of excited

crowds. The description in theIliadof the bodily and mental nature of Thersites theimmeasurable gossip, corresponds to the repulsion felt by a Nordic ruling-caste to


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whom power belongs, towards a yelping under-man who dares to find fault with the

noble power. Adolf Schulten has shown that Polybius (III, 33), has described the

Tyrrhenians, originating from Asia Minor, as Thersitai. The name Thersites would

thus have been applied to a man of Asian Minor origin, which Homer could still haveperceived.

The evidence of Homeric poetry shows, at least, how in the age of the poets, one

imagined gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, to be. Thereby, it can be

recognised from theIliadand the Odyssey, that bodily features as well as mental

characteristics were regarded as inherited and capable of being passed on, capable of

cultivation in refined generations with careful choice of wife. These evidences frompoetry show that human individuals and peoples see their divinities according to the

image of their own bodily make-up, as Xenophanes (Fragment14) and Aristotle

(Politics, I, 2, 7) have remarked, and from theIliadand Odyssey it can be seen, that at

least the leading families of a people which saw its gods as light-skinned, blond and

blue-eyed men of tall stature, must have corresponded completely to this facial image.Evidence from later centuries confirms that the Homeric poems have correctly

distinguished the racial peculiarity of the Hellene of early history: this Greek was

preponderantly of Nordic type.

Otto Reche has pointed out a Graecian word, which by itself alone represents an

important assertion about the racial nature of the Greek: the word iris for the iris ofthe eyes. Iris means in fact a rainbow; a folk with dark, brown or black-brown eyes

would never have compared the eye-colouring with a rainbow. Only bright eyes, the

blue, blue-green or grey of the Nordic race, and greenish and brightly-mixed coloured

eyes of people with Nordic weft, could explain a word like iris. This word could

only have been chosen by a people of a preponderantly bright-eyed stock.

hans f. k. gunther 1929 [like a greek god]

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