cules and Theseus are mentioned among them, as well as the principal leaders in the Trojan war. Jason, however, is the central figure and the real hero of the enterprise. When he and his companions arrived, after many adventures, at Æa, king Eetes promised to deliver to him the golden fleece, provided he yoked two fire-breathing oxen with brazen feet, ploughed with them a piece of land, sowed in the furrows thus made the remainder of the teeth of the dragon slain by Cadmus, and vanquished the armed men that would start from the seed. Here, also, as in the legend of Theseus, love played a prominent part. Medea, the daughter of Eetes, who was skilled in magic and supernatural arts, furnished Jason with the means of accomplishing the labours imposed upon him; and as her father still delayed to surrender the fleece, she cast the dragon asleep during the night, seized the fleece, and set sail in the Argo with her beloved Jason and his companions. Eetes pursued them; but after many long, and strange wanderings, they at length reached Iolcus in safety.

§ 6. In the Heroic age Thebes was already one of the principal cities of Greece. Towards the close of this period it became the scene of the last struggles of a fated race, whose legendary history is so full of human crime, of the obscure warnings of the gods, and of the inevitable march of fate, as to render it one of the favourite subjects of the tragic poets of Athens.

Laïus, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle to beget no children, or he would be murdered by his son. He neglected the prediction, but to obviate its effects caused his son Edipus by Jocasta to be exposed to death. The infant, however, was saved and carried to Corinth, where king Polybus reared him as his own. Grown up to manhood, and stung by the reproaches which he heard cast upon his birth, Edipus consulted the Delphic oracle respecting his parentage, and was warned by it not to return to his native land, as he was there destined to slay his father and commit incest with his mother. Edipus, believing Polybus to be his real father, now avoided Corinth and took the road to Thebes, but by so doing incurred the very fate which he sought to avoid. Meeting Laius in a narrow road he slew him in a quarrel, and then proceeding to Thebes obtained the hand of his mother, queen Jocasta, promised as a reward to the man who should solve a riddle propounded by the sphinx, a monster which had long infested the land, but which was driven to slay itself by the solution of its enigma. Two sons and two daughters were the fruit of the incestuous marriage. These horrors drew down a pestilence on the land, and in order to avert it, an oracle commanded the banishment of the murderer of Laïus. The inquiries instituted to discover the guilty man revealed the fatal truth.

Jocasta hangs herself; Edipus, unable any longer to bear the light of day, puts out his eyes, and being expelled from the city by his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, pronounces upon them a curse which speedily takes effect. In a struggle for undivided dominion, Polynices is driven out of Thebes by his brother, and repairing to Argos obtains the aid of king Adrastus to reinstate him in his rights. Besides that monarch and Polynices five other heroes join the expedition, making the confederacy known under the name of the "Seven against Thebes." All of them except Adrastus are slain, whilst Polynices and Eteocles fall by each other's hands.

Ten years later the sons of the allied princes undertake another expedition against Thebes in order to avenge their fathers' fate, hence called the war of the Epigoni, or the Descendants. It proved successful. Thebes was taken and razed to the ground after the greater part of its inhabitants had left the city on the advice of the prophet Tiresias.

§ 7. In mythological chronology the war of the Epigoni immediately precedes the expedition against Troy, whose legend forms the termination of the Heroic age. While it was the last, it was also the greatest of all the heroic achievements. It formed the subject of innumerable epic poems, and has been immortalised by the genius of Homer.

Paris, son of Priam, king of Ilium or Troy, abused the hospitality of Menelaus, king of Sparta, by carrying off his wife Helen, the most beautiful woman of the age. All the Grecian princes looked upon the outrage as one committed against themselves. Responding to the call of Menelaus, they assemble in arms, elect his brother Agamemnon, king of Mycena, leader of the expedition, and sail across the Egean in nearly 1200 ships to recover the faithless fair one. Several of the confederate heroes excel Agamemnon in fame. Among them Achilles, chief of the Thessalian Myrmidons, stands pre-eminent in strength, beauty, and valour, whilst Ulysses, king of Ithaca, surpasses all the rest in the mental qualities of counsel, subtilty, and eloquence. Thus, though by opposite endowments, these two heroes form the centre of the group. Next to them we observe the aged Nestor, king of Pylus, distinguished for his wisdom and experience; the valiant Diomedes, king of Argos, son of Tydeus, slain at Thebes, and one of the Epigoni; the Telamonian Ajax, of Salamis, who, though somewhat heavy and unwieldy, is next to Achilles in person and fighting power; and lastly, Idomeneus of Crete, a grandson of Minos.

Among the Trojans, Hector, one of the sons of Priam, is most distinguished for heroic qualities, and forms a striking contrast

Next to Hector

to his handsome but effeminate brother Paris. in valour stands Æneas, son of Anchises and Aphrodité (Venus). Even the gods take part in the contest, encouraging their favourite heroes, and sometimes fighting by their side or in their stead.

It is not till the tenth year of the war that Ilium yields to the inevitable decree of fate, and it is this year which forms the subject of the Iliad. Achilles, offended by Agamemnon, abstains

from the war, and even entreats his mother Thetis to obtain from Jove victory for the Trojans. In his absence the Greeks are no match for Hector. The Trojans drive them back into their camp, and are already setting fire to their ships, when Achilles gives his armour to his friend Patroclus, and allows him to charge at the head of the Myrmidons. Patroclus repulses the Trojans from the ships, but the god Apollo is against him, and he falls under the spear of Hector. Desire to avenge the death of his friend proves more powerful in the breast of Achilles than anger against Agamemnon. He appears again in the field in new and gorgeous armour, forged for him by the god Hephaestus (Vulcan) at the prayer of Thetis. The Trojans fly before him, and although Achilles is aware that his own death must speedily follow that of the Trojan hero, he slays him in single combat.

§ 8. The Iliad closes with the burial of Hector. The death of Achilles and the capture of Troy were related in later poems, as well as his victories over Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and Memnon, king of Ethiopia. The hero of so many achievements perishes by an arrow shot by the unwarlike Paris, but directed by the hand of Apollo. The noblest combatants had now fallen on either side, and force of arms had proved unable to accomplish what stratagem at length effects. It is Ulysses who now steps into the foreground and becomes the real conqueror of Troy. By his advice a wooden horse is built, in whose inside he and other heroes conceal themselves. The infatuated Trojans admit the horse within their walls. In the dead of night the Greeks rush out and open the gates to their comrades. Ilium is delivered over to the sword, and its glory sinks in ashes.

§ 9. The return of the Grecian leaders from Troy forms another series of poetical legends. Several meet with tragical ends. Agamemnon is murdered, on his arrival at Mycenae, by his wife Clytemnestra, and her paramour Ægisthus. Diomedes, who also finds his house defiled, is driven from Argos and settles in Italy. But of these wanderings the most celebrated and interesting are those of Ulysses, which form the subject of the Odyssey. After twenty years' absence he arrives at length in Ithaca, where he slays the numerous suitors who devoured his substance and contended for the hand of his wife Penelope.

§ 10. It has been already stated that the Trojan war closes the Heroic age, and the poet Hesiod relates that the divine race of heroes was exhausted before the walls of Thebes and on the plain of Illium. As the Trojan war was thus supposed to mark an epoch in Grecian history, great pains were taken in the later periods of antiquity to fix its date. That of Eratosthenes, a grammarian at Alexandria, enjoyed most credit, which placed the fall of the city 407 years before the first Olympiad, and consequently in the year 1184 B.C.

11. In relating the legends of the Heroic age we have made no attempt to examine their origin, or to deduce from them any historical facts. All such attempts are in our opinion vain and fruitless. Whether there were real persons of the name of Hercules, Theseus, and Minos can neither be affirmed nor denied. Our only reason for believing in their existence is the tradition of the Greeks respecting them; and knowing how worthless is tradition, especially when handed down by a rude and unlettered people, we cannot accept the Grecian heroes as real personages upon such evidence. It has been supposed by many modern writers that the wonderful story of the Argonauts took its rise from the adventurous voyages of early Greek mariners to the coasts of the Euxine; that the expeditions of the "Seven against Thebes" and their descendants, represented in a legendary form an actual contest between Argos and Thebes; and that the Homeric tale of the Trojan war was based upon historical facts. But for such statements we have no authority. They are at the best only probable conjectures. While therefore we do not deny the possibility of an historical Trojan war, we cannot accept it as a fact supported by trustworthy evidence, since Homer is our sole authority for it.

§ 12. Although the Homeric poems cannot be received as a record of historical persons and events, yet they present a valuable picture of the institutions and manners of a real state of society. Homer lived in an age in which antiquarian research was unknown; his poems were addressed to unlettered hearers, and any description of life and manners which did not correspond to the state of things around them would have been unintelligible and uninteresting to his contemporaries. In addition to this, there is an artless simplicity in his descriptions which forces upon every reader the conviction that the poet drew his pictures from real life, and not from an antiquated past or from imaginary ideas of his own. The description which he gives of the government, manners, society, and customs of his age demands our attentive consideration, since with it our knowledge of the Greek people commences.

§ 1. Political condition of Greece-the Kings. § 2. The Boulé, or Council of Chiefs. § 3. The Agora, or general assembly of freemen. §4. The condition of common freemen and slaves. § 5. State of social and moral feeling. § 6. Simplicity of manners. § 7. Advances made in civilization. 8. Commerce and the arts. § 9. The physical sciences. § 10. The art of war.

§ 1. In the Heroic age Greece was already divided into a number of independent states, each governed by its own king. The authority of the king was not limited by any laws; his power resembled that of the patriarchs in the Old Testament; and for the exercise of it he was responsible only to Jove, and not to his people. It was from the Olympian god that his ancestors had received the supremacy, and he transmitted it, as a divine inheritance, to his son. He had the sole command of his people in war, he administered to them justice in peace, and he offered up on their behalf prayers and sacrifices to the gods. He was the general, judge, and priest of his people. They looked up to him with reverence as a being of divine descent and divine appointment; but at the same time he was obliged to possess personal superiority, both of body and mind, to keep alive this feeling in his subjects. It was necessary that he should be brave

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