les at Phaselis, the sword of
Memnon at Nicomedia; the Tegeates could still show the hide of the
Calydonian boar, very many cities boasted their possession of the true
palladium from Troy. There were statues of Athene that could brandish
spears, paintings that could blush, images that could sweat, and
numberless shrines and sanctuaries at which miracle-cures were
performed. Into the hole through which the deluge of Deucalion receded
the Athenians still poured a customary sacrifice of honey and meal. He
would have been an adventurous man who risked any observation as to its
inadequate size. And though the sky had been proved to be only space and
stars, and not the firm floor of Olympus, he who had occasion to refer
to the flight of the gods from mountain tops into heaven would find it
to his advantage to make no astronomical remark. No adverse allusions to
the poems of Homer, Arctinus, or Lesches were tolerated; he who
perpetrated the blasphemy of depersonifying the sun went in peril of
death. It was not permitted that natural phenomena should be substituted
for Zeus and Poseidon; whoever was suspected of believing that Helios
and Selene were not gods, would do well to purge himself to public
satisfaction. The people vindicated their superstition in spite of all
geographical and physical difficulties, and, far from concerning
themselves with the contradictions which had exerted such an influence
on the thinking classes, practically asserted the needlessness of any
historical evidence.

[Sidenote: Slowness of the decline and fall of Polytheism.]

[Sidenote: The secondary causes of its downfall.]

It is altogether erroneous to suppose that polytheism maintained its ground
as a living force until the period of Constantine and Julian. Its downfall
commenced at the time of the opening of the Egyptian ports. Nearly a
thousand years were required for its consummation. The change first
occurred among the higher classes, and made its way slowly through the
middle ranks of society. For many centuries the two agencies--geographical
discovery, arising from increasing commerce and the Macedonian expedition,
and philosophical criticism--silently continued their incessant work, and
yet it does not appear that they could ever produce a change in the lowest
and most numerous division of the social grade. In process of time, a third
influence was added to the preceding two, enabling them to address
themselves even to the humblest rank o