and the people, to their authority. Their names and exploits have been handed down, mixed with much that is fictitious, in the early songs and traditions embodied in the most ancient Grecian poetry. As these poetic fables appear to be founded on facts, and to preserve the ancient legends of this interesting people, they cannot be entirely neglected. We shall give a brief account of them, without attempting the difficult task of separating the fabulous from the true.

cenæ.

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32. The story of Hercules, or Heracles, appears to consist of several distinct traditions. In one view, it represents the exploits of a real hero: in another view, it describes, under the fiction of this hero, the works of a community. In yet another view, it is a mythical or fabulous representation of the progress of an eastern religion. cording to the poetical traditions, Hercules, a descendant from Jupiter, was born at Thebes, where he slew the lion of Cithara, which devoured the cattle of Thespiæ, among whose herdsmen he was trained; delivered Thebes from its subjection to Euginus, king of Orchomenus; and married. the daughter of Creon. The "twelve labours" of Hercules were performed in obedience to Eurysthenes, king of MyOf these supernatural labours, the first was, to bring the skin of the Nemean lion; the second, to destroy the hydra; the third, to catch the hind of Artemis; the fourth, to take the Erymanthean boar alive; the fifth, to cleanse the stables of Augeas, king of Elis; the sixth, to drive the water-fowl off the lake Stymphalis; the seventh, to fetch the Cretan bull; the eighth, to bring to Mycena the mares of Diomedes; the ninth, to bring the girdle of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons; the tenth, to fetch, from the isle of Erythea, the oxen of Gergon; the eleventh, to bring apples from the Hesperides; the twelfth, to conduct Cerberus, the watch-dog of hell, from under the earth.—The number of these labours, and other considerations, make it probable that the progress of the sun in the heavens was thus described. Besides these "labours," Hercules is celebrated in some of the ancient stories for having formed the lake that nearly covered the plain of Orchomenus, by stopping the opening through which the river Cephissus escaped from a passage under the earth. In other legends, he figures as a warrior at the head of conquering armies, and forming alliances; or as a lonely adventurer wandering along the shores of Western Europe.

33. Theseus was a near relative of Hercules, whose exploits excited him to follow his example, by sallying forth to destroy the chieftains that were spreading through the land. His first encounter was with Periphetes, a robber chief, in the mountains of Epidauria. Theseus attacked and slew him. He then proceeded, with the brazen club which he had taken from Periphetes, to the isthmus of Corinth, where he slew a famous robber, Simmis, by fastening him, as he had done his victims, to the opposite branches of two pines bent towards each other, which, in recovering suddenly from the force which bent them, rent his body in pieces. His next attack was upon a wild sow, or, according to others, a female robber, of the name of Phæä, that infested the inhabitants of Crommyon. Journeying along the mountainous region bordering on the Saronic gulf, he delivered the country from the powerful robbers that had their strongholds there, and slew Cercyon; he also slew Procrustes, by stretching him on one of the beds on which he had tortured those who fell into his hands. When Theseus reached the banks of the river Cephissus, he was hospitably entertained by the superintendents of the mysteries of Ceres. Arriving at Athens, he made himself known to Ægeus the king as his son. Being acknowledged by the king, he courted the favour of the people, by going out against a fierce bull in Marathon, the terror of the neighbourhood. Theseus brought the bull alive to Athens, and, after leading him in triumph through the city, offered him in sacrifice to Apollo.

34. At this time, it was the practice of the Athenians to send seven youths and seven virgins, every tenth year, to Crete, for the purpose of appeasing the vengeance of Heaven, which had visited them with pestilence and famine. These tributary youths were said by some to be cast by Minos, king of Crete, into a labyrinth, where they were destroyed by the Minotaur-a fabulous monster. When the ship came for the usual tribute, Theseus offered himself. On his arrival at Crete, Ariadne, the king's daughter, fell in love with him. She gave him a thread, by which he explored the windings of the labyrinth. There he slew the Minotaur,* and returned to Athens with Ariadne and his Athenian companions. The vessel in which he returned It is most likely that Taurus was the name of a man,

was kept by the Athenians for a thousand years. After the death of Ægeus, Theseus gathered the inhabitants of Attica under one commonwealth at Athens. He instituted the Isthmian games, in honour of Neptune. He made a voyage to the Euxine, and performed the wonders related by the poets, in the war with the Amazons. His fame is connected, further, with the battles of the Lapithæ against the Centaurs, and with the recovery of the bodies of those that fell before Thebes. His later years were embittered by factions in Athens. Leaving the city, with curses on the ungrateful inhabitants, he sought repose in the isle of Scyros; but he was thrown headlong from a rock, by Lycomedes, the king of the island, and killed. Long afterwards, his body is said to have been removed to Athens, where it was laid near the Gymnasium, in the middle of the city, and honoured with solemn sacrifices. As in the case of Hercules, facts are blended with the fables of the poets. But such are the earliest fragments of Athenian history.

35. Minos, of Crete, having reduced the tribes of that island under his government, made himself master of many islands in the gean sea; sent out colonies in various directions, and was victorious over the inhabitants both of Megara and of Attica; and at length was cut off in Sicily. He was more eminent as a lawgiver than even as a warrior. His laws and civil institutions became the model for the other states of Greece.

36. The Argonautic Expedition, stripped of its poetical embellishments, leaves little for history to record. Jason, a prince of Thessaly, built a large vessel, which he armed with a band of heroic adventurers from several parts of Greece, and sailed to Colchis, near the Euxine Sea, from whence he carried off the golden fleece, and Medea, the daughter of Ætus the king. Under the veil of these names, it is supposed, the early contests of the Greeks with the Asiatic nations are set forth, together with the religious connexions of the earlier inhabitants of Greece.

37. The Siege of Troy has been rendered famous in all lands by the "Iliad of Homer." It has been disputed, among modern historians, whether Homer was a real or a fictitious person; whether, if he were a real person, he composed the Iliad, or whether it was a compilation from the poems of more ancient times; and whether this

poem,

or these poems, were written or merely recited from memory. However these questions may be determined by scholars, it is certain that the "Iliad" has its foundation in real facts; and that it contains the richest treasure of materials for illustrating the manners of the fathers of that wonderful people whose authentic history is so closely connected with the progress of society and of all the arts.

38. The northern parts of Asia Minor appear to have been occupied by tribes closely connected with those which settled in Greece. The first settlement on the western coast was that of Troy. From the lofty mountain of Ida, a projecting ridge commanded a fertile though narrow plain, watered by the Simois and the Scamander, and extending northward to the Hellespont, and westward to the Egean sea. This plain took its name from Dardanus; and from Tros, and Iluş, descendants from Dardanus, were derived the names Ilion and Troy, applied to the city besieged by the Greeks. Paris, son of Priam, king of Troy, visited Greece in one of those wild excursions so common in that age. He was received hospitably by Menelaus, king of Sparta. In revenge of some real or supposed injury from the Greeks, he carried off Helen, wife of Menelaus, from Sparta to Troy. As Menelaus was one of the greatest princes in Greece, and brother to Agamemnon, king of Argos, all the Grecian chiefs, excepting the Acarnanians, assembled at the call of Agamemnon, to avenge the insult and the breach of hospitality which had been offered by the Trojan prince to the entire Greek nation. It was while the fleet was detained at Aulis, a seaport of Bocotia, by unfavourable winds, that Agamemnon is reported to have sacrificed his daughter to the gods, to secure a safe passage to Troy. Their voyage prospered. From twelve hundred vessels, each containing from fifty to a hundred and twenty men, an army of a hundred thousand men landed on the coast, and, by their strength, compelled the Trojans to keep within the walls of their city. But the walls were so strong, that the Greeks were defied from within. To support themselves in this situation, the Greeks wasted the surrounding country, and sent out detachments to cultivate the neglected lands of the Thracian Chersonese. Meanwhile, the Trojans were assisted by the Macedonians and the Thracians, and by the Asiatic nations to the east and to the south; and the siege was prolonged for ten years. In the tenth year, the Greeks

obtained an entrance into the city by the well-known stratagem of the wooden horse. Troy was plundered. Priam was slain. The queen, the princesses, and the only surviving prince, were led away as captives by the

conquerors.

39. The absence of the chiefs, for so many years, occasioned great confusion and many disasters in Greece. Agamemnon's queen, Clytemnestra, had been seduced by Ægisthus, his kinsman, who usurped his throne; and the monarch himself, on his return from Troy, was traitorously murdered. Only one of five Boeotian chiefs returned. Many suffered shipwreck in the attempt to return. Ulysses, of Ithaca, was tossed about on unknown seas. Menelaus, for whose sake the expedition was undertaken, only reached his home after long wanderings over distant seas and countries. Ajax perished at sea. Those who reached their home found their places occupied by usurpers their lands overrun by enemies, or wasted by neglect-their families ruined by jealousy and discord, and their cities disturbed by factions and seditions.

40. When we separate the poetical inventions which give so much splendour to the " Iliad" and the "Odyssey," from the numberless pictures they contain of national manners, we gather from them an almost complete view of the state of Grecian society in what has been called the Heroic Age. Beginning with religion, the simple descriptions of Homer, compared with the works of Hesiod, have afforded us a lively exhibition of the objects of Grecian worship, their ceremonies, and the influence of these superstitions on the minds and the characters of the people. We may take a brief survey of the gods of the Grecian my thology-their religious rites-their oracles-their festivals -their doctrines-and their morals.

41. The gods of the Grecian mythology were partly the same with those of the Egyptians, and of the Asiatic nations; partly their own personifications of the powers of nature, and of human qualities; and partly the deified heroes of their own poetic history. The gods worshipped by the Greeks. in common with the nations from whom they sprang, or with whom they mingled, were imaginary beings, superior to men, in power, wisdom, and immortality; yet not without the weakness, passions, and even vices of our fallen nature. Their most ancient traditions looked back to a state of much