Note 467 — BOOK THE FOURTEENTH.

Footnote 467: (return) These passages were regarded by the ancients as referring to the perpetual strife of the elements. Thus Plato, in Theætet. says: Ὅμηρος εἰπὼν, Ὠκεανόν τε θεῶν γένεσιν, καὶ μητέρα Τηθὺν, πάντα εἴρηκεν ἔκγονα ροῆς τε καὶ κινήσεως. See Sextus Empir. adv. Grammat. i. 13, p. 280, ed. Fabr.; Stobæus, Ecl. i. 11. Grote, vol. i. p. 16, note, observes that, “Oceanus and Tethys seem to be presented in the Iliad as the primitive father and mother of the gods,” although he says that “Uranos and Gæa, like Oceanus, Tethys, and Nyx, are with Homer great and venerable gods, but neither the one nor the other present the character of predecessors of Kronos and Zeus.”