Note (return) — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Whether we regard the poets as the principal theological teachers of the ancient Greeks, or as the compilers, systematizers, and artistic embellishers of the theological traditions and myths which were afloat in the primitive Hellenic families, we can not resist the conclusion that, for the masses of the people Zeus was the Supreme God, "the God of gods" as Plato calls him. Whilst all other deities in Greece are more or less local and tribal gods, Zeus was known in every village and to every clan. "He is at home on Ida, 176 on Olympus, at Dodona. 177 While Poseidon drew to himself the Æolian family, Apollo the Dorian, Athene the Ionian, there was one powerful God for all the sons of Hellen--Dorians, Æolians, Ionians, Achæans, viz., the Panhellenic Zeus." 178 Zeus was the name invoked in their solemn nuncupations of vows--