ments have a genesis and history, that can be discerned, but which we will, just now, pass by. Their deadening influence, combined with that of an enervating climate and other circumstances, succeeded in checking the progressive life of most nations altogether. But this was not the uniform experience; and in one location especially, circumstances combined favorably, and genius escaped the strait-jacket of custom, and asserted itself. It was genius cultivated; and it had all the advantages of its cultivation.
To its aid came the multitude. Let us be pardoned if we analyze, even like Euhemerus himself. Briareus, the hundred-handed giant, who comes to the assistance of Jupiter, is invoked (so we learn from Homer) by Thetis. Is it the genius of commerce that has made the people rich, and a strong helpmeet, to serve the purposes of the young autocrat, who overthrows the old system, because it is devouring all that it generates? It is remarkable that afterwards is another war, inevitable in like circumstances, and repeated in all subsequent history,—the war of the conquering Olympics, with their instruments the giants. The people has been made use of, and has thereby learned its force: now it asks for participation of power, or perhaps only for a recognized existence as a living part of the body politic. In the Grecian history, Jupiter here triumphs again. He stands at that happy point between the cultivated conservative, and the fresh strong children of earth, who are his foster-brethren, that he has the advantage of both. He rules by fulness of natural life. He rules no less by cultivated genius; for Prometheus assisted him.[1] He has wedded custom, the oldest daughter of Saturn; and, though on occasion he hangs her up and whips her, on the whole he honors her more than all his wives; and she is Juno, queen of Olympus.
We would not try, even if we were able, to trace out the story into all its details, to join on the old mythology with the plain prose of annals. We only mean to show that it is indicated in Grecian traditions, that, in remote antiquity, an immense revolution took place, which broke asunder some
- ↑ "Prometheus" of Æschylus.
