Note 999 — Chapter XI · SPIRIT OF THE GRECIAN RELIGION.

The air was Zeus.—Lycoph. Cassand. 80. Meurs. Comm. p. 1179. To some particular state of which the ancients alluded when they spoke of Kronos seeking to devour his children and swallowing stones instead of them. For the teeth of time which produce no effect on the air appear to devour whatever is composed of the element of earth. Mythologists, however, have generally omitted to remark that the stones which Kronos mistook for his children were not ordinary blocks of basalt or granite but rather so many statues of children endued, pro tempore, with life.—Ἔτι δέ, φησὶν, ἐπενόησε θεὸς Οὐρανὸς βαιτύλια, λίθοις ἐμψύχοις μηχανησάμενος.—Sanchon. ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. l. i. c. 10. p. 37.