In that old Homeric heaven,—­in those quiet seats of the gods of the heroic world, which were never shaken by storm-wind, nor lashed by the tempest that raved far below round the dwellings of wretched mortals,—­in those quiet abodes above the thunder, there was for the most part nought but festal joy, music, choral dances, and emptying of nectar-cups, interrupted now and then by descents into the low-lying region of human life in quest of adventure, or on errands of divine intervention in the affairs of men, for whom, on the whole, Zeus and his court entertained sentiments of profound contempt.  Once in a while Zeus and all his courtiers went on a festal excursion to the land of the blameless Ethiops, which lay somewhere over the ocean, where they banqueted twelve days.  Why such a special honor as this was shown to these Ethiops is not explained.  Within their borders were evidently the summer resorts, Newport and Baden-Baden, frequented by the Olympians.  Only in great crises was the whole mythic host of the Grecian religion summoned to meet in full forum on the heights of the immemorial mountain.  At such times, all the fountains, rivers, and groves of Hellas were emptied of their guardian daemons, male and female, who hastened to pay their homage to and receive their orders from the Cloud-Gatherer, sitting on his throne, in his great skyey Capitolium, and invested with all the pomp of mythic majesty, his ambrosial locks smoothly combed and brushed by some Olympian friseur, his eagle perched with ruffled plumes upon his fist, and everything else so arranged as most forcibly to impress the country visitors and rural incumbents with salutary awe for the occupant of their sky-Vatican.  Whether these last were compelled to salute the Jovine great toe with a kiss is not recorded, there being no account extant of the ceremonial and etiquette of Olympus.  Whatever it was, doubtless it was rigidly enforced; for the Thunderer, it would seem, had a Bastile, or lock-up, with iron doors and a brazen threshold specially provided for contumacious and disobedient gods.

Zeus, although he could claim supreme dominion under the law of primogeniture, was originally only a coequal ruler with his two brothers, Hades, king of the underworld, and Ennosigaeus, monarch of the salt sea-foam.  They were alike the sons and coequal heirs of Kronos, or Time, and the Moerae, or Destinies, had parcelled out the universe in three equal parts between them.  But the position of Zeus in his serene air-realm gave him the advantage over his two brothers,—­as the metropolitan situation of the Roman see in the capital of the world gave its diocesan, who was originally nothing more than the peer of the Bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage, and Constantinople, an opportunity finally to assert and maintain a spiritual lordship.  This is a case exactly in point.  It is certainly proper to illustrate a theocratic usurpation by an hierarchic one.  Zeus, with his eagle and thunder and that earthquaking nod, was too strong for him of the trident and him of the three-headed hound.  The whole mythic host regarded Jove’s court as a place of final resort, of ultimate appeal.  He was recognized as the Supreme Father, Papa, or Pope, of the Greek mythic realm.  The nod of his immortal head was decisive.  His azure eyebrows and ambrosial hair were full of fate.