iii. OUTLINE OF THE GREEK MYTHOLOGY.

THE Greek mythology may most conveniently be treated in four divisions: myths of the origin and government of the world, myths of the origin and early life of man, myths of deities, and myths of heroes.

1. MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN AND GOVERNMENT OF THE World.

The Iliad vaguely mentions the all-encompassing borderstream of the world, Okeanos, as the origin of things, without suggesting by what process they were produced from it.

The myth of the origin of the world which gained widest acceptance among the Greeks was that elaborated by Hesiod in his Theogony. According to this, in the beginning was Chaos, Yawning Abyss. Then Gaia, wide-bosomed Earth, Erōs, Love, Erebos, Darkness, and Nyx, Night, came into being. From Erebos and Nyx sprang Aither, clear upper Sky, and Hemera, Day. Gaia produced Ouranos (Latin Uranus), starry Heaven, Ourea, great Mountains, home of the nymphs, and Pontos, the unfruitful Sea.

Uranos became the spouse of Gaia. From them were begotten the twelve Titans, which apparently are to be considered personifications of the elementary forces of Nature. Several of the Titans are mentioned in pairs, male and female, as Ōkeanos (Latin Ōceanus) and Tethys, Hyperion and Theia, Kronos and Rhea. Of the same origin were the three Cyclops, or Round-eyes, Brontes, Thunder, Steropēs, Lightning, and Arges, Thunderbolt; and also the three

Hundred-handed, Hekatoncheires, which were at first perhaps a personification of the violent waves of the sea.

The Titans and Hekatoncheires bade fair to become too mighty for their father Uranos, so he hurled them back again into the earth. Gaia, resenting this treatment, incited the Titans to vengeance. She fashioned a strong sharp sickle, and showed Kronos how to do his father an irreparable hurt. Kronos, lying in wait, inflicted the irremediable wound as directed. The drops of blood, falling upon the earth from the wounded Uranos as he ascended, produced the Erinyes, Furies, and the Gigantes, Giants, a race of monsters with legs of serpents. Other parts from the wound fell into the sea and floated there, till from the sea-foam Aphrodite, goddess of Love, was born.

Kronos and Rhea now succeeded to the position of Uranos and Gaia as deities of heaven and earth. Of them were born Hestia, Demeter, and Hera, Aides, or Pluton, Poseidon, and Zeus. Kronos, having been warned by his parents that he would sometime be overpowered by a son, swallowed his first five children so soon as they were born. The sixth child, Zeus, was conveyed by the mother to Crete. In place of it she gave Kronos a stone, carefully wrapped up, which he gulped down without noticing the deception. Zeus soon reached maturity, and with his mother's help forced Kronos to disgorge the other children. They came forth uninjured, together with the stone. A stone said to have been that swallowed by Kronos was preserved at Delphi as a most sacred relic. It appears to have been a meteorite.

Then ensued a terrible struggle. The powers of sky and earth gathered in two opposing forces, led by Kronos and Zeus. The scene of the conflict was Thessaly. The

Titans with Kronos occupied Mt. Othrys, Zeus and the other sons of Kronos entrenched themselves on Mt. Olympus. The contest at first was even-matched. In the last resort Zeus brought forward as allies the Cyclops, who furnished him thunderbolts, and the Hekatoncheires, who shook the earth. Sky and earth blazed, the earth rocked and was rent asunder, all things seemed about to return to ancient chaos. Finally the sons of Kronos gained the victory. The Titans were hurled down under the earth and there guarded by the Hekatoncheires.

The three sons of Kronos now divided up the government of the universe by lot. As Kronos and Rhea had succeeded Uranos and Gaia, so they themselves gave place to Zeus and Hera, Zeus henceforth being lord of heaven and earth. Poseidon became ruler of the sea and all waters; Aïdes, of the Underworld, the realm of darkness, abode of the dead and storehouse of treasures.

The sovereignty of Zeus was by no means undisputed. Typhoeus, or Typhōs, a hundred-headed monster, one of the latest of Gaia's offspring, aspired to the mastery of all things, and was overcome by Zeus only with the help of the thunderbolt. Then the Giants attempted to scale the heights of heaven, and after a prolonged struggle were defeated in the same way. The war of the Giants has often been confused with that of the Titans.

Uranos, Kronos, and Zeus all appear to have been originally personifications of the sky; Uranos, as a fructifying power, sending moisture and life to the earth; Kronos, as a maturing and ripening influence, hence extensively worshipped in Greece as a harvest god; and Zeus, the clear shining vault of heaven as the source of light and health, the symbol of order and fixed law, the organizing and

directing power of the world. In the wars of the Titans and of the Giants, Titanomachia and Gigantomachia, there may be a reminiscence of the volcanic activities and terrible convulsions of Nature of which the traces are so abundant in Greece and the Greek islands.

Each of the rulers of the universe has under him a host of lesser deities, by whom his decrees are carried out. But in the government of the world an important part is played by Fate, or the Fates, Moirai, usually reckoned as three in number, Klotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. At first they were conceived of as carrying out the will of Zeus. But later they were regarded as a personification of the inflexible, invariable law of necessity. To this law, inherent in the very nature of things, and inexorable, gods and men alike are subject. Even the will of Zeus may not change or render ineffectual its decrees.

2. MYTHS OF THE ORIGIN AND EARLY LIFE OF MAN.

There was little agreement among the Greeks in regard to the details of their myths setting forth the beginning and first gods of the world. A like diversity characterizes their notions about the origin and early life of man. In general it was thought that the first men sprang from the earth or from natural objects, as woods, streams, stones, and the like. Hence the name autochthones (sprung from the land itself), used of people supposed to have come into being in the land which they occupied.

The human race was thought to be as old as that of the gods, extending at least as far back as the time of Kronos. Under his rule was the Golden Age, a happy time in which men were large in frame, pure in life, and fed without effort of their own on the generous bounty of

earth. They lived long, in blessedness like that of the gods, who often came to earth and associated with them. After death they became beneficent spirits, dwelling unseen among men.

After the overthrow of Kronos came the Silver Age, inferior to the Golden. Men were now slower in physical development, yet of larger and finer form than we. Becoming haughty and self-willed, they even refused to give due honor to the gods, who more and more withdrew from relations with them. Zeus took them from the earth and made them ghosts of the Underworld.

Then followed the Bronze Age, full of strife and violence. Men fell at one another's hands, or wore themselves out in constant warfare, and perished soul and body.

Last came the Iron Age. Enfeebled man must now earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. While men were struggling in this hard condition, Prometheus, Forethought, son of the Titan Iapetos, brought them fire from heaven and taught them its uses, thus leading them to a knowledge of the arts. For this Zeus condemned him to unending torture. He was chained upon a bleak cliff.

Here an eagle each again at night.

day ate out his liver, which grew

But men were not content with honest toil, and tried in every way to get the advantage of one another. They became so desperately wicked that Zeus sent a great flood upon the earth. All perished save two, Deucaliōn and Pyrrha. These, directed by the gods, cast stones behind them, which became men and women, progenitors of the present race. But wickedness still remains. The gods have long since ceased to visit the earth as they did of old, and are often obliged to send punishment for sin.