mass occupying the yawning abyss of space. The original condition was therefore named Chaos (= yawn), and Milton, following the example of the Greek poets, asserts the existence of a deity, Chaos, who holds sway over the place Chaos. This weltering mass of matter ultimately came under the influence of powers which developed within it, the lighter and finer parts rising into the upper regions and coming under the sway of a deity, Uranus, and the lower settling and gaining a firm consistency, under the influence of another deity, Gaia. These deities, together with Erebus and Night, who jointly dominated the regions below the earth, form the first dynasty of the gods.

28. They had offspring of three distinct types. First are the deities of distinct regions of the world or of general conditions. Such are Æther (see 5) and Hemera (day), children of Erebus and Night, and Eos or Aurora (dawn). The second type of offspring are the gigantic beings mentioned above as causing volcanoes and other convulsions of nature. They are the first-born children of Uranus and Gaia, and are represented as having a hundred hands and fifty heads. The third and greatest type are the Titans, also children of Heaven and Earth, but less repulsive in appearance and less brutal in nature than their brothers. They are characterized by great power, conjoined with intelligence to direct that power. Many of them are identified with the mightier, but orderly forces of nature. Such were Oceanus (the sea), Cronus or Saturn (time), Rhea (productiveness), Hyperion (the sun).

29. The myth arose that Uranus, displeased with his

eldest offspring, cast them into his dungeon in Tartarus. Gaia thereupon stirred up the Titans to rebellion under the leadership of Saturn. Armed with a sickle provided by his mother, Saturn wounded his father, and from the drops of blood that fell upon the earth sprang up a hideous race of gigantic monsters with legs formed of serpents, to whom Milton gives the distinctive name " Earth-born," to distinguish them from those giants born of both Heaven and Earth. Although it would normally have been the "birthright" of the eldest Titan, Oceanus, to succeed his father, Saturn, as the chief agent in the downfall of Uranus, seized the throne of the universe, taking as his consort his sister Rhea. With them begins the second dynasty of the gods.

30. They had many children, among them Neptune (Poseidon), Pluto (Hades), Jove (Zeus), Vesta, Ceres, Juno. In order to avoid a fate like his father's, Cronus attempted to devour each of his children at his birth. Jove was saved by a device of his mother, and by a medicinal potion compelled his father to disgorge those children already swallowed.

31. The children thus rescued made war upon their father to dethrone him. The scene of the war was in Thessaly, Jove, with his brothers Neptune and Pluto and their forces, taking his stand on Mount Olympus, and Saturn on the opposite height of Mount Othrys. Powerful allies of Jove were the hundred-handed giants, who under the leadership of Briareos, one of their number, hurled destructive thunderbolts at Saturn's crew. With their aid victory fell to the rebellious sons, who proceeded to apportion the universe among themselves by

lot. The primacy in rank and the immediate care of the earth and of the upper region fell to Jove, the sway of the watery kingdom was assigned to Neptune, and Pluto was obliged to be content with playing the part of a "Nether Jove" in the under world. Saturn, driven into exile, fled with his friends across the Adriatic Sea to Italy. His divine presence there wrought such beneficent effects upon civilization that the period of his reign is called the Golden Age.

In Il Penseroso Milton declares that from the union of Saturn with Vesta in that early age sprang the child

Melancholy," thus symbolizing the nature of that emotion, as fostered by culture and retirement. Afterward Vesta assumed her well-known character of goddess of the domestic hearth in Rome, and pledged herself by an oath to Jove to live thenceforth the life of a celibate.

32. With the accession of Jove and his brothers to power began the third dynasty of the gods. Soon they were compelled to defend themselves against a rebellion on the part of the Earth-born giants (see 29). The most formidable ally of the latter was the fire-breathing, hundred-headed monster Typhon, who came to their aid from his den near the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor. His stature reached the sky, his eyes flashed fire, his voices struck terror to the heart. He so terrified the lesser gods that they fled from Olympus to Egypt and disguised themselves in the forms of animals (see 55). But Jove made good his claims to sovereignty by defeating even this enemy, and thereafter reigned in peace. The volcanic plain of Phlegra is the fabled scene of this decisive contest, and its masses of lava and its barren

and jagged surface still give evidence of the scathing effect of Jove's thunderbolts.

33. The race of man appeared on the earth in due time, either by spontaneous generation or by direct creation, and the gods withdrew to regions inaccessible to man, such as the tops of lofty mountains, or the recesses of the earth or the sea. Jove, with his sister Juno as queen, formed a permanent court on Mount Olympus. There the gods sat in council, or feasted on ambrosia and drank nectar, served by Jove's cupbearer, the beautiful Hebe, whose name is the poet's synonym for fresh and youthful beauty.

34. Although Jove dwelt in this palace on Mount Olympus, yet he frequented certain other localities, where he communicated his will to man through oracles. Mount Ida, in Crete, where he had been hidden from his bloodthirsty parent in infancy (see 30), remained ever sacred to him; and at Dodona, in Epirus, his oracles could be heard voiced in the rustling leaves of his sacred oak. Olympia, in Elis, was the centre of his worship, where from all Greece men gathered to pray in his temple, and where at intervals of four years contests of skill were celebrated in his honor.

35. By union with many immortal and mortal wives, he begat numerous offspring, who inherited each a portion of his father's divinity, and became subordinate deities, exercising a limited authority over some portion of the world or some element of human character. Succeeding generations inherited less of divine nature, and by degrees the "Seed of Jove" became undistinguishable in character from human beings, except by the

possession of an unusual degree of power of some particular kind.

Lesser Deities.

36. Among the children of Jove, none are more important in poetry than the Muses, born of his wife Mnemosyne (Memory).

The Muses are deities that inspire in man artistic powers. They are nine in number, each imparting some special art impulse to her devotees. They are represented as living in the neighborhood of mountains, such as Parnassus, in Phocis; Olympia, in Elis; Helicon, in the district of Boeotia called Aonia (see map, p. 86). The Pierian springs beneath Olympus, the Castalian spring beneath Parnassus, and the springs of Hippocrene and Aganippe beneath Helicon were the haunts of the Muses, their gentle, spontaneous, musical currents symbolizing the flow of poetic and artistic inspiration into the human soul.

37. Of the children of Jove, perhaps the next in importance are Phoebus-Apollo and Diana, born at Delos, whither their mother Latona had been driven because of the jealousy of Juno. Because born at the foot of Mount Cynthus, they are known as Cynthius and Cynthia, respectively.

38. Phoebus-Apollo is god of light, prophecy, music, poetry, and archery, and of the arts and sciences. In appearance, he is the type of manly beauty. His musical and poetic gifts are symbolized by the lyre, which he usually carries in his hand. As god of light, he is represented as the deity that drives in the flaming chariot of