Story of Aeneas | Page 3

Their food was am-bro'si-a, which gave them immortality and perpetual youth, and their drink was a delicious wine called nectar.
The gods often visited men and even accepted their hospitality. Sometimes they married human beings, and the sons of such marriages were the demigods or heroes of antiquity. AEneas was one of those heroes, his mother being the goddess Ve'nus, of whom we shall hear much in the course of our Story.
Though the gods never died, being immortal, they might be wounded and suffer bodily pain like men. They often took part in the quarrels and wars of people on earth, and they had weapons and armor, after the manner of earthly warriors. But they were vastly superior to men in strength and power. They could travel through the skies, or upon land or ocean, with the speed of lightning, and they could change themselves into any form, or make themselves visible or invisible at pleasure.
The usual residence of the principal gods was on the top of Mount O-lym'pus, in Greece. Here they had golden palaces and a chamber where they held grand banquets at which celestial music was rendered by A-pol'lo, the god of minstrelsy, and the Muses, who were the divinities of poetry and song.
Splendid temples were erected to the gods in all the chief cities, where they were worshiped with many ceremonies. Valuable gifts in gold and silver were presented at their shrines, and at their altars animals were killed and portions of the flesh burned as sacrifices. Such offerings were thought to be very pleasing to the gods.
The head or king of the gods was Ju'pi-ter, also called Jove or Zeus. He was the great Thunderer, at whose word the heavens trembled.
He, whose all conscious eyes the world behold, The eternal Thunderer sat enthroned in gold. High heaven the footstool of his feet he makes, And wide beneath him all Olympus shakes. HOMER, Iliad, BOOK VIII.
The wife of Jupiter, and the queen of heaven, was Ju'no, who, as we shall see, persecuted the hero AEneas with "unrelenting hate." Nep'tune, represented as bearing in his hand a trident, or three- pronged fork, was the god of the sea.
Neptune, the mighty marine god, Earth's mover, and the fruitless ocean's king. HOMER
Mars was the god of war, and Plu'to, often called Dis or Ha'des, was the god of the lower or "infernal" regions, and hence also the god of the dead. One of the most glorious and beautiful of the gods was Apollo, god of the sun, of medicine, music, poetry, and all fine arts.
Bright-hair'd Apollo!--thou who ever art A blessing to the world--whose mighty heart Forever pours out love, and light, and life; Thou, at whose glance, all things of earth are rife With happiness. PIKE.
[Illustration: A ROMAN AUGUR.]
Another of the famous divinities of the ancients was Venus, the goddess of beauty and love. According to some of the myths she was the daughter of Jupiter. Others say that she sprang from the foam of the sea.
These and countless other imaginary beings were believed in as deities under the religious system of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and every unusual or striking event was thought to be caused by some god or goddess.
The will of the gods, it was supposed, was made known to men in different ways--by dreams, by the flight of birds, or by a direct message from Olympus. Very often it was learned by consulting seers, augurs or soothsayers. These were persons believed to have the power of prophecy. There was a famous temple of Apollo at Delphi, in Greece, where a priestess called Pyth'i-a gave answers, or oracles, to those who came to consult her. The name oracle was also applied to the place where such answers were received. There were a great many oracles in ancient times, but that at Delphi was the most celebrated.

STORY OF AENEAS.

I. THE WOODEN HORSE,
The gods, of course, had much to do with the siege and fall of Troy, as well as with the sufferings of Aeneas, which Vergil describes in the AEneid. There were gods and goddesses on both sides in the great conflict. Some were for the Tro'jans, others for the Greeks, and some had their favorites among the heroes and warriors who fought on one side or the other. Two very powerful goddesses, Juno and Mi-ner'va (the goddess of wisdom, also called Pallas), hated the Trojans because of the famous "judgment of Pa'ris," which came about in this way--.
A king of Athens named Pe'leus married a beautiful sea-nymph named The'tis. All the gods and goddesses were present at the wedding feast except E'ris, the goddess of discord. She was not invited, and being angry on that account, she resolved to cause dissension among the guests. With this object she threw into the midst of the assembly