COMMENTARY.
1. πολυώνυμε: most of the “di majores” are called πολυώνυμοι by the poets (e.g., Dionysus, with his sixty titles: he was distinctly πολυειδὴς καὶ πολύμορφος, Plut. Moralia, 389ᶜ). Cf. Theocr. xv. 109 (Aphrodite), πολυώνυμε καὶ πολύναε. So Artemis is designated in Aristophanes by the titles Dictynna, Agrotera, Pandrosus, Phosphorus, Tauropolis: Rogers on Wasps, 368, Ellis on Catull. xxxiv. 21, sis quocunque tibi placet | sancta nomine. In Babylonian mythology the god of Babylon received the names, attributes, and powers of the older deities (Merodach or Mardük=Ea=Hadad=Sîn: cf. Sayce, Gifford Lectures, 1902, p. 329); similarly Egyptian theology saw in the various gods mere forms of one divinity (for example, Nu=Temu=Rā. As Rā was the father of the gods, every god in the Egyptian pantheon represents some phase of him, and he represents every god: Budge, Egyptian Religion, chap. iii). In the Rig-Veda (i. 164, 46) one poet says: “That which is One the sages name in various ways—Agni, Yama, Mâtarisvan.” The thoughtful Hindu of to-day looks through the maze of his mythology to the philosophical background of the One eternal self-existent Being in whose unity all visible symbols are gathered (Monier-Williams, Indian Wisdom, chap. i.). For a note on πολυώνυμος see Sykes and Allen on Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 18. The word appears to have possessed a special significance from the Stoic standpoint, as Diogenes Laertius indicates. The concept implied in ll. 1, 2 is criticized by St. Basil, Hexæm. Hom. i. On ἀρχηγός, cf. Clem. Alex., Strom. vii. 840,
2. νόμου: cf. Cic. de Nat. Deor. i. 36, Zeno naturalem legem divinam esse putat eamque vim obtinere (=ἐνεργεῖ) recta imperantem prohibentemque contraria. Heraclitus was the first to identify the law of nature with the will of
