PART II

STORIES OF GREECE AND ROME

INTRODUCTION

THE stories gathered together here were handed down in the twilight of history from one generation to another. They were told around the firesides or sung in the market places or chanted in the halls of royal palaces. In time, as a national feeling came to be developed, certain heroes became national heroes and around these, minstrels and priests wove the many myths and legends into an artistic whole. Early writers gave definite form to these stories and to-day we read them in Greek and Latin in much the same form as the early minstrel sang them to the music of his lyre.

The religion of the Greeks owed its origin and growth to their keen and vivid imagination, which was stimulated in turn by the natural beauty of their country, the lofty mountains, beautiful rivers, green fields and groves, and over it all the bluest skies.

For the wonders of nature, which are explained to us by science, they created beautiful stories which often had in them such profound truths that when we read them now we are not only charmed by the beauty of these simple stories, but we are moved by their depth of meaning.

As they looked up at the soft, fleecy clouds, they saw flocks of sheep, driven across the sky by their shepherd, the wind. The rainbow was a beautiful maiden, Here's messenger. Her flight was so rapid that one could never see her; only by the trail which her many colored draperies left behind her could one know that she had passed. Under Mount Etna was bound with unbreakable chains the giant who dared defy Zeus.

From time to time he breathed forth fire and flames and when he changed his position the earth trembled.

Everything about the Greeks was personified and every grove, fountain, and river was the habitation of some nymph or satyr. Pan, the god of woods and fields, was everywhere.

The greater gods dwelt on high Olympus, where all was sunshine and clear air, where neither snow fell nor hail nor rain, nor was it ever shaken by the winds.

The religion of the Romans, as we know it from literature, was largely inherited from the Greeks and therefore was much like the Greek religion. They made gods of the sea, the sun, the lightning, and of all the great materials and forces in nature, but to these they gave names different from those of the Greeks. Like the Greeks, their gods were supposed to have human powers of mind, body, and feeling, but in all cases they were more than human.

Zeus (Jupiter) was the king and father of gods and men. With thunderbolts and lightning flashes he punished the crimes of mortals. His special messenger was the eagle. He presided at the councils held on Mount Olympus and called the gods together at his pleasure.

His brothers were Poseidon (Neptune), who ruled the sea, and Pluto (Orcus), king of the underworld, the abode of the dead.

Here (Juno) the glorious, sister and wife of Zeus, sat at his right, while at his left sat Pallas Athene (Minerva) goddess of wisdom, skilled in all the arts of war and peace.

The most beautiful of all the gods was Apollo (Phoebus), god of the sun, of music and poetry, and leader of the nine muses. His golden shafts often proved fatal to mortal man.

His twin sister was Artemis (Diana), goddess of the moon and of the chase. She is often represented with a stag and a quiver of arrows and wearing upon her forehead her emblem, the crescent moon.

Aphrodite (Venus), born of the sea foam, was the goddess of love and beauty.

Ares (Mars) was the god of war and Hephaestus (Vulcan) was the smith of the gods, who built their dwellings on Olympus and forged their weapons.

Hermes (Mercury), the winged messenger of the gods, doing their bidding, sped through the air with staff and winged cap and sandals.

In these stories we shall see how the will of the gods influences and directs the actions of heroes whose courage knows no bounds when a wrong must be righted or a friend's death avenged, who bravely face death upon the perilous seas or in fighting horrid monsters and yet who show the deepest reverence for customs and traditions and great tenderness for wife and child and friend and home.

Many of the best things in our present life and culture are inherited from the Greeks and Romans. We still find our greatest models in the remains of Grecian art, literature, and architecture. In all these fields we have inherited much from the Romans, but our greatest debt to them is to be found in our codes of law. The reading of stories from Greek and Roman heroes will give us, therefore, greater love for the beautiful and true in art, literature, and life.

The names of the Roman gods are given above in parentheses. The following table gives the pronunciation of the names of both the Greek and Roman gods:

In later times Phoebus Apollo (fē'bus a pŏl'o) was worshiped in

Rome under the Greek name Phoebus.

BOOK I

THE STORY OF ACHILLES

CHAPTER ONE

WHY THE GREEKS SAILED TO TROY

HELEN, daughter of Tyndareus and Leda, was the fairest of all the women in Greece-nay, of all the women on the face of the whole earth. All the princes of Greece were suitors for her in marriage, and assembled at Sparta, of which city Tyndareus 5 was king, that she and her father might make their choice among them.

While they awaited the choosing, Tyndareus said to them, "You do me much honor, my lords, by paying court to my daughter and desiring to have her to wife. Nevertheless, there 10 is something in this matter that makes me afraid. Ye are many, and my daughter can have but one of you for a husband. How, then, will the matter stand when she shall have made her choice? Will it not be that one, indeed, will be pleased and many offended, and that for one friend I shall have 15 a score or so of enemies? Listen, therefore, to me, and be sure that my daughter is of one mind with me. She would rather die unmarried, or even lay hands upon herself, than that she should bring trouble upon my house. And her resolve is this: Ye must all swear a great oath that ye will defend her and her 20 husband, whomsoever she may choose, with all your might, and that if he or she suffer any wrong, ye will avenge them to the very best of your power."

This King Tyndareus did by the counsel of Ulysses; and the reason why Ulysses gave this counsel was this. He thought tin dā'rūs lē'da

ù lis'ēz