Chapter II (2)

"I do not now discuss the moral titles of the Olympian scheme; what I dwell upon is its intense humanity, alike in its greatness and its littleness, its glory and its shame. As the cares and joys of human life, so the structure of society below is reflected, by the wayward wit of man, on heaven above. Though the names and fundamental traditions of the several deities were wholly or in great part imported from abroad, their characters, relations, and attributes passed under a Hellenizing process, which gradually marked off for them special provinces and functions, according to laws which appear to have been mainly original and indigenous, and to have been taken by analogy from the division of labor in political society. The Olympian society has its complement of officers and servants, with their proper functions. He-phæs'tus (or Vulcan) moulds the twenty golden thrones which move automatically to form the circle of the council of the gods, and builds for each of his brother deities a separate palace in the deep-folded recesses of the mighty mountain. Music and song are supplied by Apollo and the Muses; Gan-y-me'de and He'be are the cup-bearers, Hermes and Iris are the messengers; but Themis, in whom is impersonated the idea of deliberation and of relative rights, is the summoner of the Great Assembly of the gods in the Twentieth Iliad, when the great issue of the Trojan war is to be determined." [Footnote: Address to the Edinburgh University, November 3, 1865.]

But, however prone the gods were to evil passions, and subject to human frailties, they were not believed to approve (in men) of the vices in which they themselves indulged, but were, on the contrary, supposed to punish violations of justice and humanity, and to reward the brave and virtuous. We learn that they were to be appeased by libations and sacrifice; and their aid, not only in great undertakings, but in the common affairs of life, was to be obtained by prayer and supplication. For instance, in the Ninth Book of HOMER'S Iliad the aged Phoe'nix--warrior and sage--in a beautiful allegory personifying "Offence" and "Prayers," represents the former as robust and fleet of limb, outstripping the latter, and hence roaming over the earth and doing immense injury to mankind; but the Prayers, following after, intercede with Jupiter, and, if we avail ourselves of them, repair the evil; but if we neglect them we are told that the vengeance of the wrong shall overtake us. Thus, Phoenix says of the gods,

"If a mortal man
Offend them by transgression of their laws,
Libation, incense, sacrifice, and prayer,
In meekness offered, turn their wrath away.
Prayers are Jove's daughters,
Which, though far distant, yet with constant pace
Follow Offence. Offence, robust of limb,
And treading firm the ground, outstrips them all,
And over all the earth before them runs,
Hurtful to man. They, following, heal the hurt.
Received respectfully when they approach,
They yield us aid and listen when we pray;
But if we slight, and with obdurate heart
Resist them, to Saturinian Jove they cry.
Against us, supplicating that Offence
May cleave to us for vengeance of the wrong."
--COWPER'S Trans.

In the Seventeenth Book, Men-e-la'us is represented going into battle, "supplicating, first, the sire of all"--that is, Jupiter, the king of the gods. In the Twenty-third Book, Antil'ochus attributes the ill-success of Eu-me'lus in the chariot-race to his neglect of prayer. He says,

"He should have offered prayer; then had be not
Arrived, as now, the hindmost of us all."

Numerous other instances might be given, from the works of the Grecian poets, of the supposed efficacy of prayer to the gods.

The views of the early Greeks respecting the dispensations of an overruling Providence, as shown in their belief in retributive justice, are especially prominent in some of the sublime choruses of the Greek tragedians, and in the "Works and Days" of Hesiod. For instance, Æschylus says,

The ruthless and oppressive power
May triumph for its little hour;
But soon, with all their vengeful train,
The sullen Furies rise,
Break his full force, and whirl him down
Thro' life's dark paths, unpitied and unknown.
--POTTER'S Trans.

The following extracts from Hesiod illustrate the certainty with which Justice was believed to overtake and punish those who pervert her ways, while the good are followed by blessings. They also show that the crimes of one are often "visited on all."

Earth's crooked judges--lo! the oath's dread god
Avenging runs, and tracks them where they trod.
Rough are the ways of Justice as the sea,
Dragged to and fro by men's corrupt decree;
Bribe-pampered men! whose hands, perverting, draw
The right aside, and warp the wrested law.

Though while Corruption on their sentence waits
They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates,
Invisible their steps the Virgin treads,
And musters evil o'er their sinful heads.
She with the dark of air her form arrays,
And walks in awful grief the city ways:
Her wail is heard; her tear, upbraiding, falls
O'er their stained manners and devoted walls.

But they who never from the right have strayed--
Who as the citizen the stranger aid--
They and their cities flourish: genial peace
Dwells in their borders, and their youth increase;
Nor Jove, whose radiant eyes behold afar,
Hangs forth in heaven the signs of grievous war;
Nor scath, nor famine; on the righteous prey--
Peace crowns the night, and plenty cheers the day.
Rich are their mountain oaks: the topmost tree
The acorns fill, its trunk the hiving bee;
Their sheep with fleeces pant; their women's race
Reflect both parents in the infant face:
Still flourish they, nor tempt with ships the main;
The fruits of earth are poured from every plain.

But o'er the wicked race, to whom belong
The thought of evil and the deed of wrong,
Saturnian Jove, of wide-beholding eyes,
Bids the dark signs of retribution rise;
And oft the deeds of one destructive fall--
The crimes of one--are visited on all.
The god sends down his angry plagues from high--
Famine and pestilence--in heaps they die!
Again, in vengeance of his wrath, he falls
On their great hosts, and breaks their tottering walls;

Scatters their ships of war; and where the sea
Heaves high its mountain billows, there is he!

Ponder, O Judges! in your inmost thought
The retribution by his vengeance wrought.
Invisible, the gods are ever nigh,
Pass through the midst, and bend th' all-seeing eye.
The man who grinds the poor, who wrests the right,
Aweless of Heaven, stands naked to their sight:
For thrice ten thousand holy spirits rove
This breathing world, the delegates of Jove;
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and the unrighteous ways.

A virgin pure is Justice, and her birth
August from him who rules the heavens and earth--
A creature glorious to the gods on high,
Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.
Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat,
In lowly grief, at Jove's eternal feet.
There of the soul unjust her plaints ascend:
So rue the nations when their kings offend--
When, uttering wiles and brooding thoughts of ill,
They bend the laws, and wrest them to their will.
Oh! gorged with gold, ye kingly judges, hear!
Make straight your paths, your crooked judgments fear,
That the foul record may no more be seen--
Erased, forgot, as though it ne'er had been.
--Trans. by ELTON.

OATHS.

As in the beginning of the foregoing extract, so the poets frequently refer to the oaths that were taken by those who entered into important compacts, showing that then as now, and as in Old Testament times, some overruling deity was invoked to witness the agreement or promise, and punish its violation. Sometimes the person touched the altar of the god by whom he swore, or the blood that was shed in the ceremonial sacrifice, while some walked through the fire to sanctify their oaths. When Abraham swore unto the King of Sodom that he would not enrich himself with any of the king's goods, he lifted up his hand to heaven, pointing to the supposed residence of the Deity, as if calling on him to witness the oath. When he requires his servant to take an oath unto him he says, "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth;" and Jacob requires the same ceremony from Joseph when the latter promises to carry his father's bones up out of Egypt.

When the goddess Vesta swore an oath in the very presence of Jupiter, as represented in Homer's hymn, she touched his head, as the most fitting ceremonial.

Touching the head of Ægis-bearing Jove,
A mighty oath she swore, and hath fulfilled,
That she among the goddesses of heaven
Would still a virgin be.

We find a military oath described by Æschylus in the drama of "The Seven Chiefs against Thebes":

O'er the hollow of a brazen shield
A bull they slew, and, touching with their hands
The sacrificial stream, they called aloud
On Mars, Eny'o, and blood-thirsty Fear,
And swore an oath or in the dust to lay
These walls, and give our people to the sword,
Or, perishing, to steep the land in blood!

That there was sometimes a fire ordeal to sanctify the oath, we learn from the Antig'o-ne of SOPHOCLES. The Messenger who brought tidings of the burial of Polyni'ces says,

"Ready were we to grasp the burning steel,
To pass through fire, and by the gods to swear
The deed was none of ours, nor aught we knew
Of living man by whom 'twas planned or done."

In the Twelfth Book of VIRGIL'S Æne'id, when King Turnus enters into a treaty with the Trojans, he touches the altars of his gods and the flames, as part of the ceremony:

"I touch the sacred altars, touch the flames,
And all these powers attest, and all their names,
Whatever chance befall on either side,
No term of time this union shall divide;
No force nor fortune shall my vows unbind,
To shake the steadfast tenor of my mind."

The ancient poets and orators denounce perjury in the strongest terms, and speak of the offence as one of a most odious character.

THE FUTURE STATE.

The future state in which the Greeks believed was to some extent one of rewards and punishments. The souls of most of the dead, however, were supposed to descend to the realms of Ha'des, where they remained, joyless phantoms, the mere shadows of their former selves, destitute of mental vigor, and, like the spectres of the North American Indians, pursuing, with dreamlike vacancy, the empty images of their past occupations and enjoyments. So cheerless is the twilight of the nether world that the ghost of Achilles informs Ulysses that it would rather live the meanest hireling on earth than be doomed to continue in the shades below, even though as sovereign ruler there. Thus Achilles asks him--

"How hast thou dared descend into the gloom
Of Hades, where the shadows of the dead,
Forms without intellect, alone reside?"

And when Ulysses tries to console him by reminding him that he was even there supreme over all his fellow-shades, he receives this reply:

"Renowned Ulysses! think not death a theme
Of consolation: I would rather live
The servile hind for hire, and eat the bread
Of some man scantily himself sustained,
Than sovereign empire hold o'er all the shades."
--Odyssey, by COWPER, B. XI.

But even in Hades a distinction is made between the good and the bad, for there Ulysses finds Mi'nos, the early law-giver of Crete, advanced to the position of judge over the assembled shades-- absolving the just, and condemning the guilty.

High on a throne, tremendous to behold,
Stern Minos waves a mace of burnished gold;
Around, ten thousand thousand spectres stand,
Through the wide dome of Dis, a trembling band;
Whilst, as they plead, the fatal lots he rolls,
Absolves the just, and dooms the guilty souls.
--Odyssey, by POPE, B. XI.

The kinds of punishment inflicted here are, as might be expected, wholly earthly in their nature, and may be regarded rather as the reflection of human passions than as moral retributions by the gods. Thus, Tan'talus, placed up to his chin in water, which ever flowed away from his lips, was tormented with unquenchable thirst, while the fruits hanging around him constantly eluded his grasp. The story of Tantalus is well told by PROFESSOR BLACKIE, as follows:

Tantalus.

O Tantalus! thou wert a man
More blest than all since earth began
Its weary round to travel;
But, placed in Paradise, like Eve,
Thine own damnation thou didst weave,
Without help from the devil.
Alas! I fear thy tale to tell;
Thou'rt in the deepest pool of hell,
And shalt be there forever.
For why? When thou on lofty seat
Didst sit, and eat immortal meat
With Jove, the bounteous Giver,
The gods before thee loosed their tongue,
And many a mirthful ballad sung,
And all their secrets open flung
Into thy mortal ear.

The poet then goes on to describe the gossip, and pleasures, and jealousies, and scandals of Olympus which Tantalus heard and witnessed, and then proceeds as follows:

But witless he such grace to prize;
And, with licentious babble,
He blazed the secrets of the skies
Through all the human rabble,
And fed the greed of tattlers vain
With high celestial scandal,
And lent to every eager brain
And wanton tongue a handle
Against the gods. For which great sin,
By righteous Jove's command,
In hell's black pool up to the chin
The thirsty king doth stand:
With-parched throat he longs to drink,
But when he bends to sip,
The envious waves receding sink,
And cheat his pining lip.

Like in character was the punishment inflicted upon Sis'y-phus, "the most crafty of men," as Homer calls him. Being condemned to roll a huge stone up a hill, it proved to be a never-ending, still-beginning toil, for as soon as the stone reached the summit it rolled down again into the plain. So, also, Ix-i'on, "the Cain of Greece," as he is expressly called--the first shedder of kindred blood--was doomed to be fastened, with brazen bands, to an ever-revolving fiery wheel. But the very refinement of torment, similar to that inflicted upon Prometheus, was that suffered by the giant Tit'y-us, who was placed on his back, while vultures constantly fed upon his liver, which grew again as fast as it was eaten.

THE DESCENT OF OR'PHEUS.

Only once do we learn that these torments ceased, and that was when the musician Orpheus, lyre in hand, descended to the lower world to reclaim his beloved wife, the lost Eu-ryd'i-ce. At the music of his "golden shell" Tantalus forgot his thirst, Sisyphus rested from his toil, the wheel of Ixion stood still, and Tityus ceased his moaning. The poet OVID thus describes the wonderful effects of the musician's skill:

The very bloodless shades attention keep,
And, silent, seem compassionate to weep;
Even Tantalus his flood unthirsty views,
Nor flies the stream, nor he the stream pursues:
Ixion's wondrous wheel its whirl suspends,
And the voracious vulture, charmed, attends;
No more the Bel'i-des their toil bemoan,
And Sisyphus, reclined, sits listening on the stone.
--Trans. by CONGREVE.

Pope's translation of this scene from the Iliad is peculiarly melodious:

But when, through all the infernal bounds
Which flaming Phleg'e-thon surrounds,
Love, strong as death, the poet led
To the pale nations of the dead,
What sounds were heard,
What scenes appeared,
O'er all the dreary coasts!
Dreadful gleams,
Dismal screams,
Fires that glow,
Shrieks of woe,
Sullen moans,
Hollow groans,
And cries of tortured ghost!!!

But hark! he strikes the golden lyre;
And see! the tortured ghosts respire!
See! shady forms advance!
Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,
And the pale spectres dance;
The Furies sink upon their iron beds,
And snakes uncurled hang listening round their heads.

The Greeks also believed in an Elys'ium--some distant island of the ocean, ever cooled by refreshing breezes, and where spring perpetual reigned--to which, after death, the blessed were conveyed, and where they were permitted to enjoy it happy destiny. In the Fourth Book of the Odyssey the sea god Pro'teus, in predicting for Menelaus a happier lot than that of Hades, thus describes the Elysian plains:

But oh! beloved of Heaven! reserved for thee
A happier lot the smiling Fates decree:
Free from that law beneath whose mortal sway
Matter is changed and varying forms decay,
Elysium shall be thine--the blissful plains
Of utmost earth, where Rhadaman'thus reigns.
Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear,
Fill the wide circle of the eternal year.
Stern Winter smiles on that auspicious clime;
The fields are florid with unfading prime;
From the bleak pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the blest inhale
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale.
--POPE'S Trans.

Similar views are expressed by the lyric poet PINDAR in the following lines:

All whose steadfast virtue thrice
Each side the grave unchanged hath stood,
Still unseduced, unstained with vice--
They, by Jove's mysterious road,
Pass to Saturn's realm of rest--
Happy isle, that holds the blest;
Where sea-born breezes gently blow
O'er blooms of gold that round them glow,
Which Nature, boon from stream or strand
Or goodly tree, profusely showers;
Whence pluck they many a fragrant band,
And braid their locks with never-fading flowers.
--Trans. by A. MOORE.

There is so much similarity between the mythology of the early Greeks and that of many of the Asiatic nations, that we give place here to the supposed meditations of a Hindu prince and skeptic on the great subject of a future state of existence, as a fitting close of our brief review of the religious beliefs of the ancients. Among the Asiatic nations are to be found accounts of the Creation, and of multitudes of gods, good and evil, all quite as pronounced as those that are derived from the Grecian myths; and while the wildest and grossest of superstitious fancies have prevailed among the common people, skepticism and atheistic doubt are known to have been nearly universal among the learned. The poem which we give in this connection, therefore, though professedly a Hindu creation, may be accepted not only as portraying Hindu doubt and despondency, but also as a faithful picture of the anxiety, doubt, and almost utter despair, not only of the ancient Greeks; but of the entire heathen world, concerning the destiny of mankind.

The Hindu skeptic tells us that ever since mankind began their race on this earth they have been seeking for the "signs and steps of a God;" and that in mystical India, where the deities hover and swarm, and a million shrines stand open, with their myriad idols and, legions of muttering priests, mankind are still groping in darkness; still listening, and as yet vainly hoping for a message that shall tell what the wonders of creation mean, and whither they tend; ever vainly seeking for a refuge from the ills of life, and a rest beyond for the weary and heavy-laden, He turns to the deified heroes of his race, and though long he watches and worships for a solution of the mysteries of life, he waits in vain for an answer, for their marble features never relax in response to his prayers and entreaties; and he says, mournfully, "Alas! for the gods are dumb." The darts of death still fall as surely as ever, hurled by a Power unseen and a hand unknown; and beyond the veil all is obscurity and gloom.

I.

All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,
Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God?
Westward across the ocean, and northward beyond the snow,
Do they all stand gazing, as ever? and what do the wisest know?

II.

Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm
Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a
gathering storm;
In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,
Yet we all say, "Whence is the message--and what may the
wonders mean?"

III.

A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,
As they bow to a mystic symbol or the figures of ancient kings;
And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry
Of those who are heavy-laden, and of cowards loath to die.

IV.

For the destiny drives us together like deer in a pass of the hills:
Above is the sky, and around us the sound and the shot that kills.
Pushed by a Power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,
We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.

V.

The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim,
And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the
twilight dim;
And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest--
Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest?

VI.

The path--ah, who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide?
The haven--ah, who has known it? for steep is the mountain-side.
For ever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath
Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death!

VII.

Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the first of an ancient name--
Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame.
They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who
guard our race:
Ever I watch and worship--they sit with a marble face.

VIII.

And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests--
The revels and rites unholy, the dark, unspeakable feasts--
What have they wrung from the silence? Hath even a Whisper come
Of the secret--whence and whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb.

Getting no light from the religious guides of his own country, he turns to the land where the English--the present rulers of India--dwell, and asks,

IX.

Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the
uttermost sea?
"The secret, hath it been told you? and what is your message to me?
It is naught but the wide-world story, how the earth and the
heavens began--
How the gods are glad and angry, and a deity once was man.

And so he gathers around him the mantle of doubt and despondency; he asks if life is, after all, but a dream and delusion, while ever and ever is forced upon him that other question, "Where shall the dreamer awake?"

X.

I had thought, "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of
India dwell,
Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with
a spell,
They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the
unknown main--"
Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is
vain.

XI.

Is life, then, a dream and delusion? and where shall the dreamer
awake?
Is the world seen like shadows on water? and what if the mirror
break?
Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered
and gone
From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are
level and lone?

XII.

Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the hail and the
levin are hurled,
But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling
world--
The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence
and sleep,
With the dirge and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of
women who weep?
--The Cornhill Magazine.

What a commentary on all this doubt and despondency are the meditations of the Christian, who, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust," approaches his grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams!
--BRYANT.

* * * * *

II. THE EARLIEST INHABITANTS OF GREECE.

The earliest reliable information that we possess of the country called Greece represents it in the possession of a number of rude tribes, of which the Pelas'gians were the most numerous and powerful, and probably the most ancient. Of the early character of the Pelasgians, and of the degree of civilization to which they had attained before the reputed founding of Argos, we have unsatisfactory and conflicting accounts. On the one hand, they are represented as no better than the rudest barbarians, dwelling in caves, subsisting on reptiles, herbs, and wild fruits, and strangers to the simplest arts of civilized life. Other and more reliable traditions, however, attribute to them a knowledge of agriculture, and some little acquaintance with navigation; while there is a strong probability that they were the authors of those huge structures commonly called Cyclopean, remains of which are still visible in many parts of Greece and Italy, and on the western coast of Asia Minor.

Argos, the capital of Ar'golis, is generally considered the most ancient city of Greece; and its reputed founding by In'achus, a son of the god O-ce'anus, 1856 years before the Christian era, is usually assigned as the period of the commencement of Grecian history. But the massive Cyclopean walls of Argos evidently show the Pelasgic origin of the place, in opposition to the traditionary Phoenician origin of Inachus, whose very existence is quite problematical. Indeed, although many of the traditions of the Greeks point to a contrary conclusion, the accounts usually given of early foreign settlers in Greece, who planted colonies there, founded dynasties, built cities, and introduced a knowledge of the arts unknown to the ruder natives, must be taken with a great degree of abatement. The civilization of the Greeks and the development of their language bear all the marks of home growth, and probably were little affected by foreign influence. Still, many of these traditions are exceedingly interesting, and have attained great celebrity. One of the most celebrated is that which describes the founding of Athens, one of the renowned Grecian cities.

THE FOUNDING OF ATHENS.

Ce'crops, an Egyptian, is said to have led a colony from the Delta to Greece, about the year 1556 B.C. Two years later he proceeded to Attica, which had been desolated by a deluge a century before, and there he is said to have founded, on the Cecropian rock--the Acrop'olis--a city which, under the following circumstances, he called Athens, in honor of the Grecian goddess Athe'na, whom the Romans called Minerva.

It is an ancient Attic legend that about this time the gods had begun to choose favorite spots among the dwellings of man for their own residence; and whatever city a god chose, he gave to that city protection, and there that particular deity was worshipped with special homage. Now, it happened that both Neptune and Minerva contended for the supremacy over this new city founded by Cecrops; and Cecrops was greatly troubled by the contest, as he knew not to which deity to render homage. So Jove summoned a council of the gods, and they decided that the supremacy should be given to the one who should confer the greatest gift upon the favored city. The story of the contest is told by PROFESSOR BLACKIE in the following verses.

Mercury, the messenger of the gods, being sent to Cecrops, thus announces to him the decision of the Council:

"On the peaks of Olympus, the bright snowy-crested,
The gods are assembled in council to-day,
The wrath of Pos-ei'don, the mighty broad-breasted,
'Gainst Pallas, the spear-shaking maid, to allay.
And thus they decree--that Poseidon offended
And Pallas shall bring forth a gift to the place:
On the hill of Erech'theus the strife shall be ended,
When she with her spear, and the god with his mace,
Shall strike the quick rock; and the gods shall deliver
The sentence as Justice shall order; and thou
Shalt see thy loved city established forever,
With Jove for a judge, and the Styx for a vow."

So the gods assembled, in the presence of Cecrops himself, on the "hill of Erechtheus"--afterward known as the Athenian Acropolis--to witness the trial between the rival deities, as described in the following language. First; Neptune strikes the rock with his trident:

Lo! at the touch of his trident a wonder!
Virtue to earth from his deity flows;
From the rift of the flinty rock, cloven asunder,
A dark-watered fountain ebullient rose.
Inly elastic, with airiest lightness
It leapt, till it cheated the eyesight; and, lo!
It showed in the sun, with a various brightness,
The fine-woven hues of the heavenly bow.
"WATER IS BEST!" cried the mighty, broad-breasted
Poseidon; "O Cecrops, I offer to thee
To ride on the back of the steeds foamy-crested
That toss their wild manes on the huge-heaving sea.
The globe thou shalt mete on the path of the waters,
To thy ships shall the ports of far ocean be free;
The isles of the sea shall be counted thy daughters,
The pearls of the East shall be gathered for thee!"

Thus Neptune offered, as his gift--symbolized in the salt spring that he caused to issue from the rock--the dominion of the sea, with all the wealth and renown that flow from unrestricted commerce with foreign lands.

But Minerva was now to make her trial:

Then the gods, with a high-sounding pæan,
Applauded; but Jove hushed the many-voiced tide;
"For now with the lord of the briny Æge'an
Athe'na shall strive for the city," he cried.
"See where she comes!" and she came, like Apollo,
Serene with the beauty ripe wisdom confers;
The clear-scanning eye, and the sure hand to follow
The mark of the far-sighted purpose, were hers.
Strong in the mail of her father she standeth,
And firmly she holds the strong spear in her hand;
But the wild hounds of war with calm power she commandeth,
And fights but to pledge surer peace to the land.
Chastely the blue-eyed approached, and, surveying
The council of wise-judging gods without fear,
The nod of her lofty-throned father obeying,
She struck the gray rock with her nice-tempered spear.
Lo! from the touch of the virgin a wonder!
Virtue to earth from her deity flows:
From the rift of the flinty rock, cloven asunder,
An olive-tree, greenly luxuriant, rose--
Green but yet pale, like an eye-drooping maiden,
Gentle, from full-blooded lustihood far;
No broad-staring hues for rude pride to parade in,
No crimson to blazon the banners of war.

Mutely the gods, with a calm consultation,
Pondered the fountain and pondered the tree;
And the heart of Poseidon, with high expectation,
Throbbed till great Jove thus pronounced the decree:
"Son of my father, thou mighty, broad-breasted
Poseidon, the doom that I utter is true;
Great is the might of thy waves foamy-crested
When they beat the white walls of the screaming sea-mew;
Great is the pride of the keel when it danceth,
Laden with wealth, o'er the light-heaving wave--
When the East to the West, gayly floated, advanceth,
With a word from the wise and a help from the brave.
But earth--solid earth--is the home of the mortal
That toileth to live, and that liveth to toil;
And the green olive-tree twines the wreath of his portal
Who peacefully wins his sure bread from the soil,"
Thus Jove: and to heaven the council celestial
Rose, and the sea-god rolled back to the sea;
But Athena gave Athens her name, and terrestrial
Joy from the oil of the green olive-tree.

Thus Jove decided in favor of the peaceful pursuits of industry on the land, as against the more alluring promises but uncertain results of commerce, thereby teaching this lesson in political economy--that a people consisting of mere merchants, and neglecting the cultivation of the soil, never can become a great and powerful nation. So Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, and patroness of all the liberal arts and sciences, became the tutelary deity of Athens. The contest between her and Neptune was represented on one of the pediments of the Parthenon.

Of the history of Athens for many centuries subsequent to its alleged founding by Cecrops we have no certain information; but it is probable that down to about 683 B.C. it was ruled by kings, like all the other Grecian states. Of these kings the names of The'seus and Co'drus are the most noted. To the former is ascribed the union of the twelve states of Attica into one political body, with Athens as the capital, and other important acts of government which won for him the love of the Athenian people. Consulting the oracle of Delphi concerning his new government, he is said to have received the following answer:

From royal stems thy honor, Theseus, springs;
By Jove beloved, the sire supreme of kings.
See rising towns, see wide-extended states,
On thee dependent, ask their future fates!
Hence, hence with fear! Thy favored bark shall ride
Safe o'er the surges of the foamy tide.

About half a century after the time of Cecrops another Egyptian, named Dan'a-us, is said to have fled to Greece, with a family of fifty daughters, and to have established a second Egyptian colony in the vicinity of Argos. He subsequently became king of Argos, and the inhabitants were called Dan'a-i. About the same time Cadmus, a Phoenician, is reported to have led a colony into Bœo'tia, bringing with him the Phoenician alphabet, the basis of the Grecian; and to have founded Cadme'a, which afterward became the citadel of Thebes. Another colony is said to have been led from Asia by Pe'lops, from whom the southern peninsula of Greece derived its name of Peloponne'sus, and of whom Agamemnon, King of Myce'næ, was a lineal descendant. About this time a people called the Helle'nes--but whether a Pelasgic tribe or otherwise is uncertain--first appeared in the south of Thessaly, and, gradually diffusing themselves over the whole country, became, by their martial spirit and active, enterprising genius, the ruling class, and impressed new features upon the Grecian character. The Hellenes gave their name to the population of the whole peninsula, although the term Grecians was subsequently applied to them by the Romans.

In accordance with the Greek custom of attributing the origin of their tribes or nations to some remote mythical ancestor, Hel'len, a son of the fabulous Deuca'lion and Pyrrha, is represented as the father of the Hellen'ic nation. His three sons were Æ'o-lus, Do'rus, and Xu'thus, from the two former of whom are represented to have descended the Æo'lians and Do'rians; and from Achæ'us and I'on, sons of Xuthus, the Achæ'ans and Io'nians. These four Hellen'ic or Grecian tribes were distinguished from one another by many peculiarities of language and institutions. Hellen is said to have left his kingdom to Æolus, his eldest son; and the Æolian tribe spread the most widely, and long exerted the most influence in the affairs of the nation; but at a later period it was surpassed by the fame and the power of the Dorians and Ionians.

* * * * *

III. THE HEROIC AGE.

The period from the time of the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly to the return of the Greeks from the expedition against Troy--a period of about two hundred years--is usually called the Heroic Age. It is a period abounding in splendid fictions of heroes and demi-gods, embracing, among others, the twelve wonderful labors of Hercules; the exploits of the Athenian king The'seus, and of Mi'nos, King of Crete, the founder of Grecian law and civilization; the events of the Argonautic expedition; the Theban and Argol'ic wars; the adventures of Beller'ophon, Per'seus, and many others; and concluding with the Trojan war and the supposed fall of Troy. These seem to have been the times which the archangel Michael foretold to Adam when he said,

For in those days might only shall be admired,
And valor and heroic virtue called:
To overcome in battle, and subdue
Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite
Manslaughter, shall be held the highest pitch
Of human glory; and, for glory done,
Of triumph to be styled great conquerors,
Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods--
Destroyers rightly called, and plagues of men.
--Paradise Lost, B. XI.

THE LABORS OF HERCULES.

The twelve arduous labors of the celebrated hero Hercules, who was a son of Jupiter by the daughter of an early king of Mycenæ, are said to have been imposed upon him by an enemy--Eurys'theus--to whose will Jupiter, induced by a fraud of Juno and the fury-goddess A'te, and unwittingly bound by an oath, had made the hero subservient for twelve years. Jupiter grieved for his son, but, unable to recall the oath which he had sworn, he punished Ate by hurling her from Olympus down to the nether world.

Grief seized the Thunderer, by his oath engaged;
Stung to the soul, he sorrowed and he raged.
From his ambrosial head, where perched she sate,
He snatched the fury-goddess of debate:
The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,
The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more;
And whirled her headlong down, forever driven
From bright Olympus and the starry heaven:
Thence on the nether world the fury fell,
Ordained with man's contentious race to dwell.
Full oft the god his son's hard toils bemoaned,
Cursed the dire folly, and in secret groaned.
--HOMER'S Iliad, B. XIX. POPE'S Trans.

The following, in brief, are the twelve labors attributed to Hercules: 1. He strangled the Ne'mean lion, and ever after wore his skin. 2. He destroyed the Lernæ'an hydra, which had nine heads, eight of them mortal and one immortal. 3. He brought into the presence of Eurystheus a stag famous for its incredible swiftness and golden horns. 4. He brought to Mycenæ the wild boar of Eryman'thus, and slew two of the Centaurs, monsters who were half men and half horses. 5. He cleansed the Auge'an stables in one day by changing the courses of the rivers Alphe'us and Pene'us. 6. He destroyed the carnivorous birds of the lake Stympha'lus, in Arcadia. 7. He brought into Peloponnesus the prodigious wild bull which ravaged Crete. 8. He brought from Thrace the mares of Diome'de, which fed on human flesh. 9. He obtained the famous girdle of Hippol'y-te, queen of the Amazons. 10. He slew the monster Ge'ry-on, who had the bodies of three men united. 11. He brought from the garden of the Hesper'i-des the golden apples, and slew the dragon which guarded them. 12. He went down to the lower regions and brought upon earth the three-headed dog Cer'berus.

The favor of the gods had completely armed Hercules for his undertakings, and his great strength enabled him to perform them. This entire fable of Hercules is generally believed to be merely a fanciful representation of the sun in its passage through the twelve signs of the zodiac, in accordance with Phoenician mythology, from which the legend is supposed to be derived. Thus Hercules is the sun-god. In the first month of the year the sun passes through the constellation Leo, the lion; and in his first labor the hero slays the Nemean lion. In the second month, when the sun enters the sign Virgo, the long-extended constellation of the Hydra sets--the stars of which, like so many heads, rise one after another; and, therefore, in his second labor, Hercules destroys the Lernæan hydra with its nine heads. In like manner the legend is explained throughout. Besides these twelve labors, however, Hercules is said to have achieved others on his own account; and one of these is told in the fable of Hercules and Antæ'us, in which the powers of art and nature are supposed to be personified.

FABLE OF HERCULES AND ANTÆUS.

Antæ'us--a son of Neptune and Terra, who reigned over Libya, or Africa, and dwelt in a forest cave--was so famed for his Titanic strength and skill in wrestling that he was emboldened to leave his woodland retreat and engage in a contest with the renowned hero Hercules. So long as Antæus stood upon the ground he could not be overcome, whereupon Hercules lifted him up in the air, and, having apparently squeezed him to death in his arms, threw him down; but when Antæus touched his mother Earth and lay at rest upon her bosom, renewed life and fresh power were given him.

In this fable Antæus, who personifies the woodland solitude and the desert African waste, is easily overcome by his adversary, who represents the river Nile, which, divided into a thousand arms, or irrigating canals, prevents the arid sand from being borne away and then back again by the winds to desolate the fertile valley. Thus the legend is nothing more than the triumph of art and labor, and their reclaiming power over the woodland solitudes and the encroaching sands of the desert. An English poet has very happily versified the spirit of the legend, to which he has appended a fitting moral, doubtless suggested by the warning of his own approaching sad fate.[Footnote: This gifted poet, Mortimer Collins, died in 1876, at the age of forty-nine, a victim to excessive literary labor and anxiety.]

Deep were the meanings of that fable. Men
Looked upon earth with clearer eyesight then,
Beheld in solitude the immortal Powers,
And marked the traces of the swift-winged Hours.
Because it never varies, all can bear
The burden of the circumambient air;
Because it never ceases, none can hear
The music of the ever-rolling sphere--
None, save the poet, who, in moor and wood,
Holds converse with the spirit of Solitude.

And I remember how Antæus heard,
Deep in great oak-woods, the mysterious word
Which said, "Go forth across the unshaven leas
To meet unconquerable Hercules."
Leaving his cavern by the cedar-glen,
This Titan of the primal race of men,
Whom the swart lions feared, and who could tear
Huge oaks asunder, to the combat bare
Courage undaunted. Full of giant grace,
Built up, as 'twere, from earth's own granite base.
Colossal, iron-sinewed, firm he trod
The lawns. How vain against a demi-god!
Oh, sorrow of defeat! He plunges far
Into his forests, where deep shadows are,
And the wind's murmur comes not, and the gloom
Of pine and cedar seems to make a tomb
For fallen ambition. Prone the mortal lies
Who dared mad warfare with the unpitying skies,
But lo! as buried in the waving ferns,
The baffled giant for oblivion yearns,
Cursing his human feebleness, he feels
A sudden impulse of new strength, which heals
His angry wounds; his vigor he regains--
His blood is dancing gayly through his veins.
Fresh power, fresh life is his who lay at rest
On bounteous Hertha's kind creative breast.
[Footnote: Hertha, a goddess of the ancient Germans,
the same as Terra, or the Earth. Her favorite retreat
was a sacred grove in an island of the ocean.]

Even so, O poet, by the world subdued,
Regain thy health 'mid perfect solitude.
In noisy cities, far from hills and trees,
The brawling demi-god, harsh Hercules,
Has power to hurt thy placid spirit--power
To crush thy joyous instincts every hour,
To weary thee with woes for mortals stored,
Red gold (coined hatred) and the tyrant's sword.

Then--then, O sad Antæus, wilt thou yearn
For dense green woodlands and the fragrant fern;
Then stretch thy form upon the sward, and rest
From worldly toil on Hertha's gracious breast;
Plunge in the foaming river, or divide
With happy arms gray ocean's murmuring tide,
And drinking thence each solitary hour
Immortal beauty and immortal power,
Thou may'st the buffets of the world efface
And live a Titan of earth's earliest race.
--MORTIMER COLLINS.

THE ARGONAUTIC EXPEDITION.

From what was probably a maritime adventure that plundered some wealthy country at a period when navigation was in its infancy among the Greeks, we get the fable of the Argonautic Expedition. The generally accepted story of this expedition is as follows: Pe'lias, a descendant of Æ'o-lus, the mystic progenitor of the Great Æol'ic race, had deprived his half-brother Æ'son of the kingdom of Iol'cus in Thessaly. When Jason, son of Æson, had attained to manhood, he appeared before his uncle and demanded the throne. Pelias consented only on condition that Jason should first capture and bring to him the golden fleece of the ram which had carried Phrix'us and Hel'le when they fled from their stepmother I'no. Helle dropped into the sea between Sigæ'um and the Cher'sonese, which was named from her Hellespon'tus; but Phrixus succeeded in reaching Col'chis, a country at the eastern extremity of the Euxine, or Black Sea. Here he sacrificed the ram, and nailed the fleece to an oak in the grove of Mars, where it was guarded by a sleepless dragon.

Joined by the principal heroes of Greece, Hercules among the number, Jason set sail from Iolcus in the ship Argo, after first invoking the favor of Jupiter, the winds, and the waves, for the success of the expedition. The ceremony on this occasion, as descried by the poets, reads like an account of the "christening of the ship" in modern times, but we seem to have lost the full significance of the act.

And soon as by the vessel's bow
The anchor was hung up,
Then took the leader on the prow
In hands a golden cup,
And on great father Jove did call;
And on the winds and waters all
Swept by the hurrying blast,
And on the nights, and ocean ways,
And on the fair auspicious days,
And sweet return at last.

From out the clouds, in answer kind,
A voice of thunder came,
And, shook in glistening beams around,
Burst out the lightning flame.
The chiefs breathed free, and, at the sign,
Trusted in the power divine.
Hinting sweet hopes, the seer cried
Forthwith their oars to ply,
And swift went backward from rough hands
The rowing ceaselessly.
--PINDAR. Trans. by Rev. H. F. CARY.

After many adventures Jason reached Col'chis, where, by the aid of magic and supernatural arts, and through the favor of Me-de'a, daughter of the King of Colchis, he succeeded in capturing the fleece. After four months of continued danger and innumerable hardships, Jason returned to Iolcus with the prize, accompanied by Medea, whom he afterward deserted, and whose subsequent history is told by the poet Euripides in his celebrated tragedy entitled Medea.

Growing out of the Argonautic legend is one concerning the youth Hy'las, a member of the expedition, and a son of the King of Mys'ia, a country of Asia Minor. Hylas was greatly beloved by Hercules. On the coast of Mysia the Argonauts stopped to obtain a supply of water, and Hylas, having gone from the vessel alone with an urn for the same purpose, takes the opportunity to bathe in the river Scaman'der, under the shadows of Mount Ida. He throws his purple chlamys, or cloak, over the urn, and passes down into the water, where he is seized by the nymphs of the stream, and, in spite of his struggles and entreaties, he is borne by them "down from the noonday brightness to their dark caves in the depths below." Hercules went in search of Hylas, and the ship sailed from its anchorage without him. We have a faithful and beautiful reproduction of this Greek legend, both in theme and spirit, in a poem by BAYARD TAYLOR, from which the following extracts are taken:

Hylas.

Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen: on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plains enamel;
Cool in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
"Why should I haste?" said young and rosy Hylas;
The seas are rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander."

He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glittering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his limbs, and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the river's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.

There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas!"
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas!"
He thought--"The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley;
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea-waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph"--again the murmur, "Hylas!"

The sound that seemed to come from the lilies was the voice of the sea-nymphs, calling to him to go with them where they wander--

"Down beneath the green translucent ceiling--
Where, on the sandy bed of old Scamander,
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing."

To all their entreaties Hylas exclaims:

"Leave me, naiads!
Leave me!" he cried. "The day to me is dearer
Than all your caves deep-spread in ocean's quiet.
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.
Let me return! the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours--I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being--
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!"

But the remonstrances and struggles of Hylas unavailing:

The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water
Pleading for help; but heaven's immortal archer;
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead;
And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hercules, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him;
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas!"
The empty echoes made him answer--"Hylas!"

THE TROJAN WAR.

Of all the events of the Heroic period, however, the Trojan war has been rendered the most celebrated, through the genius of Homer. The alleged causes of the war, briefly stated, are these: Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age, and the daughter of Tyn'darus, King of Sparta, was sought in marriage by all the Princes of Greece. Tyndarus, perplexed with the difficulty of choosing one of the suitors without displeasing all the rest, being advised by the sage Ulysses, bound all of them by an oath that they would approve of the uninfluenced choice of Helen, and would unite to restore her to her husband, and to avenge the outrage, if ever she was carried off. Menela'us became the choice of Helen, and soon after, on the death of Tyndarus, succeeded to the vacant throne of Sparta.

Three years subsequently, Paris, son of Priam, King of Ilium, or Troy, visited the court of Menelaus, where he was hospitably received; but during the temporary absence of the latter he corrupted the fidelity of Helen, and induced her to flee with him to Troy. When Menelaus returned he assembled the Grecian princes, and prepared to avenge the outrage. Combining their forces under the command of Agamem'non, King of Myce'næ, a brother of Menelaus, they sailed with a great army for Troy. The imagination of the poet EURIPIDES describes this armament as follows:

With eager haste
The sea-girt Aulis strand I paced,
Till to my view appeared the embattled train
Of Hellas, armed for mighty enterprise,
And galleys of majestic size,
To bear the heroes o'er the main;
A thousand ships for Ilion steer,
And round the two Atridæ's spear
The warriors swear fair Helen to regain.

After a siege of ten years Troy was taken by stratagem, and the fair Helen was recovered. On the fanciful etymology of the word Helen, from a Greek verb signifying to take or seize, the poet ÆCHYLUS indulges in the following reflections descriptive of the character and the history of this "spear-wooed maid of Greece:"