best authors upon this subject. Let us, however first sit down together awhile; and, as the place is free from company, we will take a deliberate view of the whole army of gods, and inspect them one after another; beginning, as is fit, with the celestial, and so with Jove, according to the direction of the poet : "Ab Jove principium Muss: Jovis omnia plena." From the great father of the Gods above Virg. Ecl. 3. QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION. Into how many classes are the gods in the pantheon divided? How are they ranged? Whence does the description begin? Repeat the line from Virgil and translation. PART I. OF THE CELESTIAL DEITIES. CHAPTER I. SEC. I-JUPITER. HIS IMAGE. THE gods commonly called celestial, are Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Mercury, and Bacchus. The celestial goddesses are Juno, Vesta, Minerva or Pallas, Venus, Luna, and Bellona. We will begin with Jupiter,* the father and king of gods and men, whom you see sitting in a throne of ivory and gold, under a rich canopy, with a beard, holding thunder in his right hand, which he brandishes against the giants at his feet, whom he formerly conquered. His sceptre, they say, is made of cypress, which is a symbol of the eternity of his empire, because that wood is free from corruption. On his sceptre sits an eagle, either because he was brought up by it, or because an eagle resting upon his head, portended his reign, or because in his wars with the giants an eagle brought him his thunder; and thence received the title of Jupiter's armour bearer. He wears golden shoes, and an embroidered cloak. adorned with various flowers and figures of animals. This cloak, it is reported, Dionysius the tyrant took from him in Sicily, and giving him a woollen cloak instead of it, said, "That would be more convenient for him in all seasons, since it was warmer in the * Divûm pater atque hominum rex. Virg. Æn, 1. winter, and much lighter in the summer." Yet you must not be surprised, if by chance you should see him in another place, and in another dress, for he is wont to be decked in several fashions, according to the various names he assumes, and according to the diversity of the people among whom he is worshipped. You may see him among the Lacedæmonians without ears; whereas the Cretans are so liberal to him in this particular, that they give him four. So much for the figure of Jupiter. QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION. Which are the celestial gods? Who is Jupiter? Of what is his sceptre the symbol? What does the eagle on his sceptre denote? What happened to him with respect to his cloak? How was he represented by the Lacedæmonians and Cretans? SEC. 2. JUPITER'S DESCENT AND EDUCATION. Those who were skilled in the Heathen Theology, reckon up three Jupiters; of which the first and second were born in Arcadia. The father of the one was Æther; from whom Proserpine and Liber are said to be born. The father of the other was Cœlus; he is said to have begot Minerva. The third was a Cretan, the son of Saturn, whose tomb is yet extant in the isle of Crete. But Varro reckoned up three hundred Jupiters; and others mention a much larger number; for there was hardly any nation that did not worship a Jupiter of their own, and suppose him to be born among themselves. But of all these, the most famous Jupiter, according to the general opinion, is he, whose mother was Ops, and whose father was Saturn; to whom therefore all that the poets fabulously wrote about the other Jupiters is usually ascribed. He was educated at the place where he was born, that is, upon the mountain Ida in Crete, but it is not |