moon, stars, and clouds--as if they were real beings, and so again of
good or bad qualities as beings also, and partly from old stories about
their forefathers. These stories got mixed up with their belief, and
came to be part of their religion and history; and they wrote beautiful
poems about them, and made such lovely statues in their honour, that
nobody can understand anything about art or learning who has not learnt
these stories. I must begin with trying to tell you a few of them.

[Picture: Head of Jupiter] In the first place, the Greeks thought there
were twelve greater gods and goddesses who lived in Olympus. There is
really a mountain called Olympus, and those who lived far from it thought
it went up into the sky, and that the gods really dwelt on the top of it.
Those who lived near, and knew they did not, thought they lived in the
sky. But the chief of all, the father of gods and men, was the
sky-god--Zeus, as the Greeks called him, or Jupiter, as he was called in
Latin. However, as all things are born of Time, so the sky or Jupiter
was said to have a father, Time, whose Greek name was Kronos. His other
name was Saturn; and as Time devours his offspring, so Saturn was said to
have had the bad habit of eating up his children as fast as they were
born, till at last his wife Rhea contrived to give him a stone in
swaddling clothes, and while he was biting this hard morsel, Jupiter was
saved from him, and afterwards two other sons, Neptune (Poseidon) and
Pluto (Hades), who became lords of the ocean and of the world of the
spirits of the dead; for on the sea and on death Time's tooth has no
power. However, Saturn's reign was thought to have been a very peaceful
and happy one. For as people always think of the days of Paradise, and
believe that the days of old were better than their own times, so the
Greeks thought there had been four ages--the Golden age, the Silver age,
the Brazen age, and the Iron age--and that people had been getting worse
in each of them. Poor old Saturn, after the Silver age, had had to go
into retirement, with only his own star, the planet Saturn, left to him;
and Jupiter was reigning now, on his throne on Olympus, at the head of
the twelve greater gods and goddesses, and it was the Iron age down
below. His star, the planet we still call by his name, was much larger
and brighter than Saturn. Jupiter was always thought of by the Greeks as
a majestic-looking man in his full strength, w