Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History

by Charlotte M. Yonge

LIST OFILLUSTRATIONS.
	page
Mount Olympus	[11]
Head of Jupiter	[14]
Supposed Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius in Ægina	[19]
Head of Pallas	[21]
Triptolemus	[23]
Mars and Victory	[25]
Mount Parnassus	[27]
The World according to the Greeks	[30]
Perseus and Andromeda	[38]
Cyclopean Wall	[41]
Scene in the Arachnæan Mountains near Argos	[44]
Building the Argo	[53]
Corinth	[62]
Plains of Troy	[69]
Greek Ships	[73]
Achilles binding his Armour on Patroclus	[78]
Sepulchral Mound, known as the Tomb of Ajax	[80]
Laocöon	[82]
Funeral Feast	[83]
Ulysses tied to the Mast	[89]
Port of Ithaca	[91]
Plain of Sparta, with Mount Taygetus	[97]
Greek Interior	[106]
Greek Robe	[107]
Male Costume	[108]
Gate of Mycenæ	[119]
Shores of the Persian Gulf	[129]
View in the Vicinity of Athens	[141]
Pass of Thermopylæ	[145]
Salamis	[148]
Persian Soldier	[152]
Tombs at Platæa	[153]
The Acropolis, Athens	[162]
Propylæa, Athens	[163]
The Academic Grove, Athens	[168]
Athens	[180]
Babylon	[182]
Greek Armour	[188]
Socrates	[190]
Plato	[193]
View on the Eurotas in Laconia	[202]
Thessalonica	[209]
Demosthenes	[212]
Diana of Ephesus	[218]
Alexander	[222]
Bacchanals	[223]
Alexander the Great	[225]
Second Temple of Diana at Ephesus	[227]
Princes of Persia	[234]
Supposed Walls of Babylon	[242]
Site of Susa, ancient Metropolis of Persia	[244]
Gate of Hadrian in Athens	[247]
Macedonian Soldier	[255]
Delphi and the Castalian Fount	[262]
Corinth	[267]
View looking across Isthmus of Corinth	[269]
Ruins of a Temple at Corinth	[271]
Temple of Neptune	[285]
Crowning the Victor in the Isthmian Games	[290]
Livadia, the ancient Mideia in Argolis	[292]
Sappho	[295]
Lessina, the ancient Eleusis, on the Gulf of Corinth	[297]
View from Corinth	[301]
Parthenon and Erectheum	[304]
Distant View of Parnassus	[307]
Plains of Philippi	[309]
Obelisk of Theodosius, Constantinople	[313]
An Amphitheatre	[314]
Promontory of Actium	[318]
Mount Helicon	[321]
Cathedral of St. Sophia	[323]
Temple of Minerva, on the Promontory of Sunium	[330]
Ancyra, Galatia	[332]
The Acropolis, Restored	[337]
The Isles of Greece	[344]
Plain of Marathon	[346]

CHAP. I.—OLYMPUS.

am going to tell you the history of the most wonderful people who ever lived. But I have to begin with a good deal that is not true; for the people who descended from Japhet’s son Javan, and lived in the beautiful islands and peninsulas called Greece, were not trained in the knowledge of God

like the Israelites, but had to guess for themselves. They made strange stories, partly from the old beliefs they brought from the east, partly from their ways of speaking of the powers of nature—sky, sun, moon, stars, and clouds—as if they were real beings, and so again of good or bad qualities as beings also, and partly from old stories about their forefathers. These stories got mixed up with their belief, and came to be part of their religion and history; and they wrote beautiful poems about them, and made such lovely statues in their honour, that nobody can understand anything about art or learning who has not learnt these stories. I must begin with trying to tell you a few of them.

Jupiter’s wife, the queen of heaven or the air, was Juno—in Greek, Hera—the white-armed, ox-eyed, stately lady, whose bird was the peacock. Do you know how the peacock got the eyes in his tail? They once belonged to Argus, a shepherd with a hundred eyes, whom Juno had set to watch a cow named Io, who was really a lady, much hated by her. Argus watched till Mercury (Hermes) came and lulled him to sleep with soft music, and then drove Io away. Juno was so angry, that she caused all the eyes to be taken from Argus and put into her peacock’s tail.

Mercury has a planet called after him too, a very small one, so close to the sun that we only see it just after sunset or before sunrise. I believe Mercury or Hermes really meant the morning breeze. The story went that he was born early in the morning in a cave, and after he had slept a little while in his cradle, he came forth, and, finding the shell of a tortoise with some strings of the inwards stretched across it, he at once began to play on it, and thus formed the first lyre. He was so swift that he was the messenger of Jupiter, and he is always represented with wings on his cap and sandals; but as the wind not only makes music, but blows things away unawares, so Mercury came to be viewed not only as the god of fair speech, but as a terrible thief, and the god of thieves. You see, as long as these Greek stories are parables, they are grand and beautiful; but when the beings are looked on as like men, they are absurd and often horrid. The gods had