the hearth, the field, the
farmstead. We modern men suffer a double temptation to misunderstand, by
belittling, the reverence in which Hellas and Rome held their gods. To
start with, our religion has superseded theirs. We approach the Olympians
with no bent towards venerating them; with minds easy, detached, to which
a great deal of their theology--the amativeness of Zeus for example--must
needs seem broadly comic, and a great deal of it not only comic but
childish. We are encouraged in this, moreover, when we read such writers
as Aristophanes and Lucian, and observe how they poked fun at the gods.
We assume--so modern he seems--Aristophanes' attitude towards his
immortals to be ours; that when, for example, Prometheus walks on to the
stage under an umbrella, to hide himself from the gaze of all-seeing
Zeus, the Athenian audience laughed just as we laugh who have read
Voltaire. Believe me, they laughed quite differently; believe me,
Aristophanes and Voltaire had remarkably different minds and worked on
utterly different backgrounds. Believe me, you will understand
Aristophanes only less than you will understand AEschylus himself if you
confuse Aristophanes' mockery of Olympus with modern mockery. But, if you
will not take my word for it, let me quote what Professor Gilbert Murray
said, the other day, speaking before the English Association on Greek
poetry, how constantly connected it is with religion:

'All thoughts, all passions, all desires' ... In our Art it is true, no
doubt, that they are 'the ministers of love'; in Greek they are as a
whole the ministers of religion, and this is what in a curious degree
makes Greek poetry matter, makes it relevant. There is a sense in each
song of a relation to the whole of things, and it was apt to be
expressed with the whole body, or, one may say, the whole being.[1]

To a Greek, in short, his gods mattered enormously; and to a Roman. To a
Roman they continued to matter enormously, down to the end. Do you
remember that tessellated pavement with its emblems and images of the
younger gods? and how I told you that a Roman general on foreign service
would carry the little cubes in panniers on mule-back, to be laid down
for his feet at the next camping place? Will you suggest that he did this
because they were pretty? You know that practical men--conquering
generals--don't behave in that way. He did it because they were sacred;
because, like most practical men, he