Mr. Sheston nodded.
“Like England, it was a little country owning a lot of land—‘scattered about,’ as you say. Well now, these islands were the Greek colonies, just as India and South Africa and Australia are our colonies. Again, like the English, the Greeks were great colonists. They sent out their people to live and build and work in places sometimes far distant from the mother country. But now I want you to find on the map one particular island-colony called Rhodes.”
“Here it is!” cried Rachel, in a minute, putting her finger on a pink-coloured spot. “It’s a good long way from Greece,” she observed, “and quite close to Asia Minor.”
“It belonged to Greece, however,” said Mr. Sheston, folding up the map. “I only want you to remember its name, and where it is. Now come and look at this statue.”
He got up, and Rachel followed him to a recess on which stood a beautiful little figure of a god.
“That is a god called Phœbus Apollo,” said Mr. Sheston. “To the Greeks he meant all the best things in the world—the sun, poetry, music, wisdom and truth, and everything that is free and beautiful.”
“The gods they worshipped in Egypt and Babylon weren’t beautiful,” said Rachel. “But this god is. He’s much better than the others.”
“Because the Greeks themselves were in some ways higher and better than the Egyptians or the Babylonians. They were thinkers and artists, and their minds were free. Therefore they were able to imagine beautiful gods, and they became the greatest race of people that ever lived.... Do you remember the name of their chief city?”
“Athens,” answered Rachel, who was rather good at geography.
“Yes, Athens,” repeated Mr. Sheston, softly. “Wonderful Athens! Well, now, my dear, I can begin my story, asking you to remember that Greece had many colonies, peopled by Greeks whose general life was very much like the life led by the citizens of Athens in the mother country. They worshipped the same gods—Phœbus Apollo amongst them—and they were, in fact, part of the Grecian Empire....”