woman was called Pandora, and the messenger of the gods brought her among men in the absence of Prometheus. The latter, who well knew that Zeus was his foe, had told his brother Epimetheus not to accept any presents from the gods. But the beauty of Pandora was irresistible. Epimetheus gladly received her, and allowed her to dwell upon earth among mankind, who thenceforth suffered many hardships on her account. Up to this period all the evils to which mankind are now subject had been inclosed in a certain casket. Pandora opened this casket, and allowed these evils to scatter themselves throughout the world; but just as Hope, which was also in the box, was about to escape, she shut the lid, and Hope "remained imprisoned, and therefore without efficacy, as before, the inviolable lid being replaced before. she could escape.

Having thus vented his rage against man, Zeus revenged himself upon Prometheus by chaining him to a rock among the mountains of the Caucasus, and stationing an eagle at his side, which should incessantly torment him by gnawing at his liver. For many years did Prometheus endure this agony, until at last Zeus, wishing to increase the glory of his son Herakles, permitted the latter to kill the eagle and deliver the prisoner.

Now Deukalion, the son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha, a descendant of Epimetheus, were the parents of Hellen, the mythic progenitor of the Hellenic nation.

The greatest impiety prevailed among mankind during the time of Deukalion and Pyrrha ; wherefore Zeus resolved to destroy them by a general deluge. Terrible and lasting rains covered all Greece, excepting some of the highest mountain-peaks, on which a few escaped destruction. This deluge is supposed to have occurred in the year 1796 B. C., while King Ogyges reigned in Attica. Deukalion saved himself and Pyrrha by means of a wooden chest which he had constructed by the advice of Prometheus. For nine days

he was tossed about by the waters, and finally disembarked on the summit of Mount Parnassus. Zeus having sent Hermes to ask him if he needed anything, Deukalion begged that he would send him some men, that he might have comrades and followers, and no longer be alone on the earth. Zeus accordingly ordered Deukalion and Pyrrha to pick up stones from the ground and cast them behind their backs. These stones became men and women, and thus was Hellas again peopled. Besides Hellen, Deukalion and Pyrrha had a son Amphiktyon, the reputed founder and protector of a certain religious and political association of the Hellenic tribes, and a daughter Protogeneia, the mother of Aëthlius, who was considered the protector of the games of the Hellenic nation.

Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and Eolus, among whom he divided the whole country. Eolus became king of Thessaly, Xuthus of the Peloponnesus; and the latter, by his marriage with Kreüsa, daughter of Erechtheus, the autochthon hero of Attica, had two sons, Ion and Achæus. Dorus possessed himself of the land opposite the Peloponnesus, on the northern side of the Corinthian Gulf.

The inhabitants of all these parts were called Hellenes from Hellen; but from his sons they received in various parts the different names of Achæans, Æolians, Ionians, and Dorians.

Thus did the Greeks account for the first origin of the Hellenic nation and its four ethnic divisions. It must be observed, however, that these mythical traditions likewise contain a certain allegorical element with more or less distinct moral application. For instance, the moral conveyed by the legend of Prometheus is that no one can contend with impunity against the omnipotent will of God; and by the later poets this legend was expanded into one of the most affecting allegories ever conceived by the imagination of

man.

Three centuries after Hesiod, Eschylus, the great dramatic poet of Athens, represented Prometheus not only as having bestowed fire upon man, but as having instructed him in all the arts, thus enlarging the scope of his life, and securing the future fortunes of the race. So that finally the story of Prometheus, who, in return for good deeds and disinterested kindness, suffered harsh imprisonment and torture, becomes a typical representation of the misfortunes and injustice which in this world so often prey upon genius.

But while, according to the myth of Hellen, the sons and descendants of Prometheus ruled over all Greece, each of the Grecian communities had its own traditions concerning the origin of its royal house. Many of these local traditions have no reference whatever to the family of Hellen, and some appear to be of even more ancient date than his genealogy. For instance, Inachus, the first king of Argos, was the son of the Titan Oceanus and the Titaness Tethys. Lelex, the first king of Laconia, and Erechtheus, the first king of Attica, were supposed to have been autochthons; as was also Pelasgus, the first king of Arkadia, although some traditions represent him to have been the son of Zeus.

These contradictions, which are numerous in the Hellenic myths, resulted from the fact that the mythological traditions were cleared not at once, but by degrees, from the clouds that enveloped them.

In the beginning every tribe had its own separate traditions, so that the ethnic myths of Hellas were originally very numerous. At a later period chroniclers endeavored to link these traditions together and to give them a certain unity; an attempt which was not altogether successful, since the legends were not complete. Hence the almost endless contradictions, and the consequent difficulty in interpreting the Hellenic traditions. It has already been stated that the first ancestor of each community was regarded as the son or immediate descendant of a god, or else as an autochthon or earth-sprung

being, in which case he was also considered divine. A similar extra-human origin was likewise attributed to the legendary heroes, and to those strangers from other lands, such as Kekrops and Kadmus, who are supposed to have planted the first seeds of civilization on Hellenic soil.

In fact, our forefathers regarded as demigods, rather than as men, not only the chieftains of their race, but even whole tribes of this remote epoch. On this account they attribute to them achievements surpassing human power and nature. Bellerophon, son of Poseidon and of a daughter of Sisyphus, king of Corinth, kills the Chimæra, a fire-spouting monster which had the head of a lion, the tail of a serpent, and the body of a goat. The hero only succeeded in accomplishing this deed by the aid of Poseidon, who gave him Pegasus, a winged horse, also sprung from the gods, mounted upon which he attacked and slew the Chimæra. Perseus, also one of the most distinguished heroes of the mythical epoch, attempts to kill Medusa, one of those numerous monsters so frequently met with in the Hellenic mythology. At first she was famous for her beauty, but afterward, having drawn upon herself the anger of Athene, the latter changed her beautiful locks of hair into serpents, and whoever looked upon them was transformed into stone. Perseus cut off the head of Medusa with the assistance of the three divinities, Pluto, Hermes, and Athene. Who does not know the astonishing deeds of Herakles, the most glorious of mythical heroes, the wonderful achievements of Theseus, king of Attica, and the superhuman strength of Theagenes, a Herakleid, who, among his many deeds of renown, proved himself a conqueror in all the games of Greece, and four hundred times received the victor's garland?

It is evident, therefore, that the world of these remote Hellenic years, created by the fervid poetic imagination of the ancient Hellenes, has nothing in common with the usual life of men. Its inhabitants are not children of mortals, but

descendants and relatives of the immortal gods, not possessing the usual measure of material and moral force allotted to man, but a certain superhuman strength and peculiarity. The Hellenes considered these traditions not only as a part of their religion, but also as belonging to their history, in which, too, they included the lives of the heroes, and the various enterprises undertaken by them. Of these the most famous were the voyage of the Argonauts, the war of the Seven against Thebes, and the war against Troy.

CHAPTER II.

THE VOYAGE OF THE ARGONAUTS.

IN the legend of the Argonauts, the descendants of Æolus, son of Hellen, play the most prominent part. Athamas, one of the sons of Eolus and ruler of Orchomenus in Bootia, took for a wife the goddess Nephele, by whom he had two children, Phrixus and Helle. Afterward abandoning Nephele, he took another wife, Ino, daughter of Kadmus, who, disliking her two step-children, made several futile attempts on their lives, and contrived to bring about a famine in the land. Athamas sought advice from the oracle at Delphi. Ino, however, by her machinations, caused the oracle to reply that the scarcity would not cease unless Phrixus were sacrificed to Zeus. Athamas, compelled by the people, resolved to carry out this mandate. But the shade of his mother Nephele appeared to Phrixus, bringing a ram with golden fleece, on which he and Helle should escape over the sea. The ram started in the direction of Kolchis, but, as they were crossing what is now called the Dardanelles, Helle fell off and was drowned, in consequence of which the name Hellespont was given to that strait. The ram, however,