it-wall, a Polis.[66:1] The idea of the tribe
remained. In the earliest classical period we find every Greek city
still nominally composed of tribes, but the tribes are fictitious. The
early city-makers could still only conceive of society on a tribal
basis. Every local or accidental congregation of people who wish to act
together have to invent an imaginary common ancestor. The clash between
the old tribal traditions that have lost their meaning, though not their
sanctity, and the new duties imposed by the actual needs of the Polis,
leads to many strange and interesting compromises. The famous
constitution of Cleisthenes shows several. An old proverb expresses well
the ordinary feeling on the subject:

+hos ke polis rhexeie, nomos d' archaios haristos.+

'Whatever the City may do; but the old custom is the best.'

Now in the contest between city and tribe, the Olympian gods had one
great negative advantage. They were not tribal or local, and all other
gods were. They were by this time international, with no strong roots
anywhere except where one of them could be identified with some native
god; they were full of fame and beauty and prestige. They were ready to
be made 'Poliouchoi', 'City-holders', of any particular city, still more
ready to be 'Hellanioi', patrons of all Hellas.

* * * * *

In the working out of these three aims the Olympian religion achieved
much: in all three it failed. The moral expurgation failed owing to the
mere force of inertia possessed by old religious traditions and local
cults. We must remember how weak any central government was in ancient
civilization. The power and influence of a highly civilized society were
apt to end a few miles outside its city wall. All through the backward
parts of Greece obscene and cruel rites lingered on, the darker and
worse the further they were removed from the full light of Hellenism.

But in this respect the Olympian Religion did not merely fail: it did
worse. To make the elements of a nature-religion human is inevitably to
make them vicious. There is no great moral harm in worshipping a
thunder-storm, even though the lightning strikes the good and evil quite
recklessly. There is no need to pretend that the Lightning is exercising
a wise and righteous choice. But when once you worship an imaginary
quasi-human being who throws the lightning, you are in a dilemma. Either
you have to admit that you are worshipping a