and the other, of the Fulgetra, or lesser lightnings, which shoot along the clouds like the Aurora Borealis.

The Jupiter Pluvius, or dispenser of rain, is nowhere represented, except on a medal, and on the Trajan and Antonine pillars, where he is seated in the clouds, holding up his right hand, from which pours a stream of rain and hail upon the earth, while his fulmen is held down in his lap. On the pillars as well as the medals, he appears with an elderly and sedate look; and with his arms extended nearly in a straight line each way. The wings given him on the pillar, relate to the original and principal character of this god, that of presiding over the air. His hair and beard are all spread down by the rain which descends from him in sheets and falls for the refreshment of the Romans, whilst their enemies are represented as struck with lightning and lying dead before them.

There was scarcely any character of Jupiter that was more capable of giving sublime ideas to the artists than this of Jupiter Pluvius. For though on the medal and Antonine pillar he appears calm and still, on the Trajan he is represented as much more agitated, and the Roman poets (whose works are counterpart to those of the artists) not only speak of Jupiter as descending in violent showers, but as quite ruffled by the winds which usually attend them. Silius actually rises into poetry when he is treating this subject, and one of the finest passages in the Æneid relates to the same. It is where Evander is pointing out the Capitoline Hill to Æneias, which Virgil supposes Jupiter to have chosen for his peculiar residence, before his temple was built, or even before the building of Rome.

By the poets, Hêra is represented as the personification of sublime beauty united with power; and in her person is represented that high, commanding order of beauty which is superior to the delicacy of female charms and does not need them. She is called the reigning, the large-eyed, the white-armed; epithets which tend to inspire us with admiration rather than love. It is not the soft and tender eye that graces her image; it is greatness and majesty commanding awe and veneration; and of all the charms which constitute the reigning queen of heaven, poetry celebrates

none but the powerful arm.

And indeed, Hera acts a part in

nearly all the violent events in heaven and on earth.

The raging elements in which the whole train of human passions is but a copy in miniature, are personated in her; for the violence of the elements is chiefly displayed in the lower atmosphere. Here they come in collision and interfere with each other; here they rob, and spoil, and breathe revenge; the rock groans in the furious sea; and under the blast of the storm the billows howl; here is a perpetual round of formation and destruction;-here is the theatre of insurrection and war; the seat of wrath, and mourning, and misery; here must Hecuba pull out her grey hairs, and Troy become a prey to the flames.

But above the atmosphere, in the pure ether, everything is quiet, permanent, and regular ;-there, the celestial globes complete their courses undisturbed, and nothing interrupts the music of the spheres ;-the top of high Olympos rises above the clouds into the still ether, and thither imagination transfers the abodes of the blessed immortals, who, exempt from care and pain, sip the sweet nectar, while charmed with the sound of Apollo's lyre.

In this manner, Fancy always unites the human form of her deities with the heavenly archetype. The swan in the bosom of Leda, as the blue ether surrounds the earth; and the ether opens again to show the ruler of Olympos with his ambrosial locks, holding the nectar cup in his hand. Hêra surrounds the globe with a transparent mist, which, pierced by the glittering rays of the sun, produces the rainbow, the archetype of Iris, Hêra's swift messenger; who, standing in the clouds, announced to mankind the approach of the august queen of heaven; and the same Hera wanders on foot through this very mist to visit her foster-parents at the bounds of the earth. But Fancy, not choosing to dwell long on these objects, which she in a certain manner attempts to explain by her personifications, rather delights to roam among the beings to whom she has given personality; and represents Hêra as opposing herself to the all-powerful Zeus, by whom she is suspended from Olympos on a chain into her own dominion, the atmosphere, with an anvil fastened to either foot. The heavenly and sublime is thus made to suffer the disgrace of being lowered down, and all celestials mourned at the sight; but Fancy, the earth-born daughter, delights in the sport.

The worship of Hêra was solemn and universal in the heathen

world. Young geese and the hawk as well as the peacock were sacred to her; and of plants, the dittany, the poppy, and the lily. The ancients offered on her altars a sow and an ewe lamb the first of every month. She was regarded as the protectress of married women, and was invoked by them under the name of Juno Lucina.

She is generally represented by plastic art in her whole regal splendor, sitting upon a throne or on the eagle of Zeus, holding in one hand a sceptre, and in the other a veil spangled with stars which flows round her head. Among earthly appearances, the tail of the peacock bears the strongest resemblance to the bright colors of the rainbow; therefore the chariot of Hêra is represented as drawn through the air by those brilliant and majestic birds.

Argos is the first place mentioned by Hêra herself as among her favored and beloved cities. Urging Zeus to consent to the downfall of Troy, a city which she hated, together with Priam's family, because of the decision of Paris on Mount Ida, she endeavored to carry her point by a kind of barter; "There are three cities," said she, "which are dearest of all to me, Argos, Sparta, and Mycena; nevertheless, I willingly part with them, I abandon them entirely to thy will, if thou wilt consent to the downfall of Troy." (Il. iv. 50.)

The reason of this partiality to Argos, was the extraordinary veneration paid to her by its inhabitants. There, particular festivals were celebrated in her honor, which from her Greek name Hera, were called Heræa.

During this celebration, there were always two processions to the temple of the goddess without the city; the first was of the men in armor, and the second of the women, when her priestess, mounted on a splendid chariot, rode in triumph to the temple of the goddess to offer a hecatomb of white heifers. The goddess was here particularly venerated in the person of her high priestess; a veneration with which the touching history of Cleobis and Biton is connected. On one occasion, when the white heifers which were to have drawn their mother were not at hand, they, with filial devotion, yoked themselves to her chariot and drew it to the temple, forty-five stadia from the gates of Argos, lest she should be deprived of the honor of the day. Having been crowned as victors in the gymnastic contests, the two youths were welcomed on their arrival at the temple by the con

gregated people, who congratulated the mother on her sons, and the sons on their strength and virtue. The mother, rejoicing in her own happiness and her children's deeds, repaired to the shrine of Juno, and standing before the statue, prayed for her sons the greatest blessing which the goddess could give, and they receive. It happened that after their mother's prayer, and when they had offered their own sacrifices, that the two brothers, overcome with fatigue, reclined in the temple and fell asleep to wake Their statues were erected at Delphi, by the hands of their admiring countrymen, and their lot was declared by the wise Solon to the wealthy Croesus, to be only inferior in happiness to that of the Athenian Tellus.

no more.

It is worthy of observation, that a spot so distant from the capital city itself, should have been selected for the position of the edifice consecrated to its patron deity. Thus removed, however, as the temple of Juno was from the haunts of men, placed upon a quiet and solitary hill, visited by shepherds and their flocks, surrounded by groves of trees, watered on each side by a mountain stream, with a long ridge of lofty hills rising at its back, and with the wide Argolic plain stretching itself at its feet, this sacred building inspired more of that particular feeling of awe and veneration, which was specially due to the stately dignity of the Dorian goddess, the wife of Jove, and the queen of the gods, than if it had stood on a less sequestered spot, or had been exposed to the daily gaze of man amid the noise of the streets, or in the crowd of the Agora of the Argolic capital itself.

The road which leads from Argos to this temple, has gained a lasting interest, similar to that possessed by the Plain of the Pious on the sides of Mount Etna,-from the act of filial devotion in the sons of the high priestess.

The games and contests of the Heræa took place in the stadium, near the temple, on the road to the Acropolis. A brazen shield was fixed in a place above the theatre, which was scarcely accessible to any one, and the young man who succeeded in displacing it, received a shield and a garland of myrtle as a prize.

The Argives always reckoned their year from her priesthood, as the Athenians from their Archons, and the Romans from their consuls.

Festivals were celebrated in honor of Hêra in all the towns of Greece, where the worship of the divinity was introduced. At

Ægina, the Heræa, or Hecatombæa, were celebrated in the same manner as those at Argos. The Heræa of Samos were derived from Argos, and were, perhaps, the most brilliant of all the festivals of this divinity. A magnificent procession consisting of maidens and married women in splendid attire and floating hair, together with men and youths in armor, went to the temple of Hêra, and on arriving within the precincts, the men deposited their armor, and prayers and vows were offered to the goddess.

The Herea of Elis were celebrated every fifth year, chiefly by maidens, conducted by sixteen matrons, who wove the sacred Peplus for the goddess. But before the commencement of these solemnities, the matrons sacrificed a pig, and purified themselves in the well of Peoria. One of the principal solemnities, was a race of the maidens in the stadium; for which purpose, they were divided into three classes according to their age; the youngest ran first, and the eldest last. The winner of the prize received a garland of olive boughs, together with part of a cow which was sacrificed to Hêra. She was also allowed to dedicate her own painted likeness in the temple of the goddess. The sixteen matrons had each a female attendant, and performed two dances.

The worship offered to Jupiter was the most solemn of any paid to the heathen deities; it was greatly diversified among different nations, and the stories of his birth in a cave on the island of Crete, or at Thebes in Bootia, or on a mountain in Arcadia, are but so many traditions of the several places where his worship became famous and was celebrated with the greatest pomp and ceremony. The reason of its having been so in Crete, is very evident; for these states were founded by Minos and Cadmos, two Attic princes, who introduced their national rites. But the Arcadians, whose lives were devoted to war or pasturage, in a rough, mountainous country, became afterwards a rude and fierce people in comparison to their neighbors, and yet they retained more traditions respecting the birth, education, and adventures of the gods, than the more civilized tribes of the Peloponnesus. This was owing probably to their early instruction, first by the descendants of Inachos, and then by the Danaides, in the religion and rites which each brought from their own country.

The victims most commonly offered to Zeus, were a goat, a