=Attributes of the Gods.=—­Each of these great gods had his form, his costume, his instruments (which we call his attributes); it is thus that the faithful imagined him and that the sculptors represented him.  Each has his character which is well known to his worshippers.  Each has his role in the world, performing his determined functions, ordinarily with the aid of secondary divinities who obey him.

Athena, virgin of clear eye, is represented standing, armed with a lance, a helmet on the head, and gleaming armor on the breast.  She is the goddess of the clear air, of wisdom, and of invention, a goddess of dignity and majesty.

Hephaistos, the god of fire, is figured with a hammer and in the form of a lame and ugly blacksmith.  It is he who forges the thunderbolt.

Artemis, shy maiden, armed with bow and quiver, courses the forests hunting with a troop of nymphs.  She is the goddess of the woods, of the chase, and of death.

Hermes, represented with winged sandals, is the god of the fertile showers.  But he has other offices; he is the god of streets and squares, the god of commerce, of theft, and of eloquence.  He it is who guides the souls of the dead, the messenger of the gods, the deity presiding over the breeding of cattle.

Almost always a Greek god has several functions, quite dissimilar to our eyes, but to the Greeks bearing some relation to one another.

=Olympus and Zeus.=—­Each one of these gods is like a king in his own domain.  Still the Greeks had remarked that all the forces of nature do not operate by chance and that they act in harmony; the same word served them for the idea of order and of universe.  They supposed, then, that the gods were in accord for the administration of the world, and that they, like men, had laws and government among them.

In the north of Greece there was a mountain to whose snowy summit no man had ever climbed.  This was Olympus.  On this summit, which was hidden by clouds from the eyes of men, it was imagined the gods assembled.  Meeting under the light of heaven, they conferred on the affairs of the world.  Zeus, the mightiest of them, presided over the gathering:  he was god of the heavens and of the light, the god “who masses the clouds,” who launches the thunderbolt—­an old man of majestic mien, with long beard, sitting on a throne of gold.  It is he who commands and the other gods bow before him.  Should they essay to resist, Zeus menaces them; Homer makes him say,[54] “Bind to heaven a chain of gold, and all of you, gods or goddesses, throw your weight upon it; all your united efforts cannot draw Zeus, the sovereign ordainer, to the earth.  On the contrary, if I wished to draw the chain to myself, I should bring with it the earth and the very sea.  Then I would attach it to the summit of Olympus and all the universe would be suspended.  By so much am I superior to gods and men.”