us medley
of theology, physics, and history. In its gorgeous scenic
representations, nature, humanity, and deity are mingled in inextricable
confusion. The gods are sometimes supernatural and superhuman
personages; sometimes the things and powers of nature personified; and
sometimes they are deified men. And yet there are passages, even in
Homer, which clearly distinguish Zeus from all the other divinities, and
mark him out as the Supreme. He is "the highest, first of Gods" (bk.
xix. 284); "most great, most glorious Jove" (bk. ii. 474). He is "the
universal Lord" (bk. xi. 229); "of mortals and immortals king supreme,"
(bk. xii. 263); "over all the immortal gods he reigns in unapproached
pre-eminence of power" (bk. xv. 125). He is "the King of kings" (bk.
viii. 35), whose "will is sovereign" (bk. iv. 65), and his "power
invincible" (bk. viii. 35). He is the "eternal Father" (bk. viii. 77).
He "excels in wisdom gods and men; all human things from him proceed"
(bk. xiii. 708-10); "the Lord of counsel" (bk. i. 208), "the all-seeing
Jove" (bk. xiii. 824). Indeed the mere expression "Father of gods and
men" (bk. i. 639), so often applied to Zeus, and him _alone_, is proof
sufficient that, in spite of all the legendary stories of gods and
heroes, the idea of Zeus as the Supreme God, the maker of the world, the
Father of gods and men, the monarch and ruler of the world, was not
obliterated from the Greek mind.[167]

[Footnote 167: "In the order of legendary chronology Zeus comes after
Kronos and Uranos, but in the order of Grecian conception Zeus is the
prominent person, and Kronos and Uranos are inferior and introductory
precursors, set up in order to be overthrown, and to serve as mementos
of the powers of their conqueror. To Homer and Hesiod, as well as to the
Greeks universally, Zeus is the great, the predominant God, 'the Father
of gods and men,' whose power none of the gods can hope to resist, or
even deliberately think of questioning. All the other gods have their
specific potency, and peculiar sphere of action and duty, with which
Zeus does not usually interfere; but it is he who maintains the
lineaments of a providential government, as well over the phenomena of
Olympus as over the earth."--Grote, "Hist. of Greece," vol. i. p. 3.

Zeus is not only lord of heaven but likewise the ruler of the lower
world, and the master of the sea.--Welcher, "Griechische Goetterlehre,"
vol. i. p. 164. The Zeus of the Greek poets is unq