Clytemnestra were from one egg, and Helena and Pollux were from the other. These loving brothers had been pupils of Chiron, and also Peleus of Ægina. He had wedded Thetis, one of the fifty Nereids, by whom he had a son Achilles, whom his mother endeavored to make immortal by dipping the child into the river Styx, and making him invulnerable, all but the heel by which she held him. He was at this time a boy, but we will learn more of him hereafter. There was one other of the company which came to Jason to join in his enterprise of whom we will speak. He was Orpheus, the son of the muse Calliope. He was regarded as the most glorious musician in all Greece.

All the fifty who started with Jason were noble youths of brave and fearless spirit. The ship which Jason had built to carry them was named the Argo, and from this the company were called the Argonauts. The ship had fifty oars, and a piece of her keel came from the great oak of Dodona. All things were ready and the leader, Jason, stood on the poop of his ship and poured out a rich libation to the gods from a golden cup. He prayed to Jupiter, to the Winds, to the Day and the Night, and to mighty Fate to give them a prosperous voyage. Old Chiron came down to the shore to see them off, and he also prayed to the gods for their safe return. The oars kept time to the music of Orpheus as he played on his harp, and thus they set sail from home upon their undertaking.

They met with many adventures of a perilous and severe nature. After they had passed through the Hellespont they came to the Propontis, which we call the sea of Marmora. Here they found an island called Bear's Head, where dwelt a race of giants with six arms. They were all slain by the Argonauts. On the coast of Mysia a youth, by the name of Hylas, went on shore to obtain water, but the nymphs of the fountain caught him and would not let him return. Hercules went in search of the youth, and neither of them returning the Argo sailed without them. But Hercules found his way back to Argos. They then came to where a wise king named Phenias lived. He was blind and beset by the horrid Harpies, who snatched away his food whenever he attempted to eat. Jason had among his crew two of the winged sons of Boreas, who pursued these harpies and drove them far out into the Mediterranean Sea. Phenias then gave the Argonauts many wise counsels and sent them on their way. There were two huge rocks, the Symplegades, which were floating in the sea. They would strike together and then float apart, leaving a channel between them. Phenias told Jason to send a dove between them, and if she flew through safely the ship might follow. Jason did so, and the dove escaped with the loss of her tail feathers. The Argo followed, each one rowing with all his strength, aided by Minerva and Juno, and just as they got through the rocks came together and broke off the brass ornaments on the stern of the vessel. The rocks then became firmly fixed, for Fate had decreed that when once a vessel had sailed safely through between them the moving rocks should stand still forever.

The Argonauts met the old foes of Hercules, the birds of Stymphalis,

AGE OF THE HEROES.

25

and after their encounter with them came in safety to the mouth of the river Phasis. Jason now sent to Æetes the king and demanded the golden fleece. To this he was told that he might have it if he would yoke the brazen-hoofed bulls who breathed flame, and with them plow a piece of ground and sow it with dragon teeth. Medea, a wicked witch, the daughter of the king, aided Jason after he had taken an oath to marry her. She gave him an ointment with which to rub himself, his shield and sword, and this would make him invincible for a whole day, so that neither fire nor sword could harm him. With this precaution he was able to master the bulls and make them draw the plow, after which he sowed the land with dragon teeth that Cadmus had given Eetes the king. These teeth sprang up as armed men, like those which Cadmus had sowed, and when they began to attack Jason he threw a stone among them which caused them to turn against each other. Then Jason could easily overthrow those who were left after the fight among themselves. But after this the treacherous king would not give up the fleece, but plotted how he might burn up the Argo and kill her crew, when Jason, warned by Medea in time to save his vessel, was led by her to the tree where the fleece was nailed. Orpheus put the dragon who kept guard over it to sleep with his music while Jason carried it away. Medea carried off her little brother and went with Jason. The father pursued them, and the cruel Medea cut up her brother little by little as they were fleeing and strewed his limbs on the stream of the Phasis, so that her father, stopping to gather them up, was hindered and the Argonauts had time to sail away.

They went home by another route, sailing away to the north, and came to the island of the goddess Circe, who purified Jason and Medea from the blood of the poor boy whom she had slain. They then came to the island where the Sirens dwelt. They were fair creatures, who stood on the shore and sang so sweetly as to lure the sailors to land. But the moment any one touched the shore the Sirens seized and strangled them and sucked their blood. Medea told Orpheus to play and sing so loud as to drown their song and thus elude them. They came into the Mediterranean somewhere near Trinacria. Here they had to pass between two lofty cliffs. In a cave under one of these cliffs dwelt a monster who had twelve limbs and six long necks with heads like a dog which would seize as many sailors out of every vessel that came within reach. This monster was named Scylla. On the other side was the monster Charybdis, who sucked down whole vessels with all their crew, so of the two evils the way by the side of Scylla was the safer. Perseus, the husband of Thetis, one of the nymphs, was on board of the Argo, and for his sake the fifty sisters of Thetis aided the ship safely past the danger. They now reached Iolcus, the place from which they set out, having been gone but four months. Jason then gave the golden fleece to his uncle Pelias and offered the Argo as a sacrifice to Neptune, the god of the sea.

After Jason had returned home from his journey after the golden fleece he found that his father son had grown very old, but his wife, Medea, the enchantress, agreed to make him young again. She gathered a number of

herbs by the light of the moon, put them in a caldron over the fire, and then cut up the body of Æson and seethed it in the herbs all night. In the morning the old man appeared as a strong, black-haired youth, no older than his son Jason. When the daughters of the king Pelias desired to do the same for their father the treacherous Medea told them how to boil him in the caldron over night, but she did not tell them the right herbs to use, and in consequence they failed to accomplish their design and only slew their father. This so angered the sons of Pelias that they drove Jason and his wife out of the kingdom, who went to Corinth and there lived for ten years. Then Jason became weary of his wife and put her away, so that he might take Creusa, the king's daughter. Medea was so angry at this that she gave the bride a poisoned robe, which killed her, and then slaying all her own children she fled away to the East in the chariot drawn by winged serpents, where she gave birth to a son, Medus, from whom the Medes descended. As for Jason, one hot day he fell asleep under the shade of the ship Argo where it was drawn up on the sands close by the temple of Neptune, and as he was sleeping a piece of wood broke off the prow and fell on his head. This killed him.

Orpheus, the skillful musician, the son of Calliope the muse, went to Thessaly after his return in the Argo. There he taught the people music and softened their manners by his art. He was married to a lovely maiden, Eurydice, with whom he lived happily until she died from the bite of a snake. The wretched man went down to Hades in search of his wife armed with nothing but his lyre. He prevailed on Pluto to allow him to take her back to the upper air. The grim old king of the world of shades permitted Orpheus to play on his lyre, and by this means induce Eurydice to follow him, but he must not look back to see if she was coming after him. She followed him until, when they were nearly out of the world of Pluto, he looked back for an instant and at once he had lost her forever. From this time his song became sad and mournful, and at last the Bacchanals tore him to pieces because he would not join in their foul ceremonies

Hellenes.

III.

STORIES FROM CLASSIC LANDS.

THE PEOPLE OF GREECE.

FTER we have read the preceding stories of mythology which the people of Greece accepted as true we know that they are only the cunning inventions of the imagination. The Greeks loved to regard themselves as having sprung from the superior beings whom they called gods, demi-gods and heroes. But all learned men know that they, like all the other nations of Europe, as well as the Persians and Hindoos, sprang from the same common stock. They were of the family of Japhet and called Arians. A tribe which were called Pelasgi were the first who came and settled in Asia Minor, Greece and Italy. After them arose the Hellenes, who were quicker and more intelligent and overcame them. The people we call Greeks were a mixture of the two and composed three lesser tribes, called Eolians, Dorians and Ionians. The old name of Greece was Hellas, from which came the name

The old heroes of whom we have been writing lived, if they ever existed, about the time the judges were ruling in the land of Canaan. There is no doubt that a city once existed called Troy, and that it was destroyed in the time of Saul, the first king of Israel. There is hardly anything, either historical or mythical, told of the Greeks for three hundred years after this time. We know that they were divided into petty States, each independent of the others, but all regarding themselves as descended from a common stock and claiming relation with their kindred in the Ægean Islands, on the coast of Asia, and in Sicily and Italy. For a long time after the heroic age there were numbers of poets who wandered from place to place and sang of their gods and heroes. These poets composed a great mass of hymns and long poems in which they delighted to tell of the wonderful things that happened in the ages before, but they mixed up so much that was true and false in their productions that it is now impossible to distinguish between them. One of the greatest of these poets was the blind Homer. His songs of the wrath of Achilles and the wanderings of Ulysses were loved and sung by every one. The story of the golden fleece and the siege of Troy, with the wonderful adventures of their forefathers, the Greeks, who united in some common

enterprise, were grand productions of human genius. Seven cities have laid claim to being the birthplace of the blind poet. These great poems and the common religion did much to bind the people of Greece together. Everybody went to Delphi to consult the oracle there. Hercules established the national games, which drew the noble youth together from every city and State of Greece to contend in the foot and chariot races, boxing and wrestling matches, throwing the quoits and heavy weights, and to engage in the singing and reciting of poems. These games were celebrated at Olympia, where there was a great festival held every five years. These became of such importance. as to form the date of the year to record any event or to make a reckoning of time. The method of recording this was to say that it happened in such a year of such an Olympiad. The first of these is fixed at the year 776 B.C., which was two thousand six hundred fifty-eight years ago. There were other games celebrated every third year on the isthmus near Corinth and called the Isthmean games. It was regarded the highest honor to win the prize at one of these games, and the fortunate victor was regarded by the people as a hero. At the first a family grew into a clan, then into a tribe, and afterward into a nation that settled in some region and kept up its tribal and clan divisions. This was the way with all the nations which came from the east. The father of the family ruled over his house and was the chief of a clan or tribe that descended from him. Then the strongest chief would lead the nation in war and become its king. But the States of Greece seemed to have dropped this arrangement and to have had a council of the chief men of each tribe, called Amphictyons, who arranged all the matters pertaining to religious and civil affairs. There was a great Amphictyonic council from all parts of Greece, which came together to consult about general matters and to receive oracles at Delphi once a year. The chief heads of families were · called aristoi, while those who were not admitted into the councils, but who had the right to choose their own governors and vote on all important matters, were called demos, or the people. Our words aristocracy and democracy came from these two words.

The cities of Greece were usually beautiful places built in valleys, and each one had several temples to the gods. These were furnished with a shrine of elaborate workmanship for the image of the divinity, and an altar for sacrifices. There was a colonnade of stone pillars and an ascent of stone steps leading to this. Every city had its market-place, where the people also assembled to decide public affairs, and here the fires of Vesta were kept burning. The noblest and best man had charge of these fires, and whenever a colony went to a new place to settle they took a lighted brand with them. to light the vestal fire upon the new altar to be erected there. Their houses were built around an open court, in which was a fountain and an altar to the ancestor of the owner of the house. The rooms were used only as sleeping rooms, for the men lived in the cloister or pillared walk built around the house. The women were more retired. The men tilled their farms by the aid of slaves, and the women spun wool and flax, making them into